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For faster broadband over the Christmas period, move your router away from the tree. Fairy lights can interfere with Wi-Fi signals and slow down connection speeds, according to research by communications regulator Ofcom.
By: Cara McGoogan,
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In a marble-pillared drawing room at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, 16 startups entered a pitch battle
By: Wired UK Staff,
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The PlayStation 4 is about to (technically) get even more powerful, as Sony has issued a “stealth update” unlocking more of the console’s computer power for developers.
The PS4 houses an eight-core CPU in its sleek, angular chassis, but anyone trying to make games for the machine only has access to six of them. Until now, those other two CPU cores were reserved for running the operating system, with utilising the GPU being emphasised over placing more demands on the main chip.
By: Matt Kamen,
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Futurist Peter Thiel recently wrote an op-ed for “The New York Times” urging us to adopt more nuclear power, if only for one reason: It’s safer than burning coal.
That might sound surprising, since nuclear power is often criticized for its safety. The world also won’t soon forget accidents like Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island.
But it turns out burning coal for power is actually a far more serious problem than nuclear power, Thiel argues.
“Fewer than 50 people were reported to have died at Chernobyl; by contrast, the American Lung Association estimates that smoke from coal-fired power plants kills about 13,000 people every year,” Thiel writes.
There’s hard data to back up Thiel’s claim, too, since a 2013 NASA report reached a similar conclusion:
“[W]e found that despite the three major nuclear accidents the world has experienced, nuclear power prevented an average of over 1.8 million net deaths worldwide between 1971-2009,” the report reads. “This amounts to at least hundreds and more likely thousands of times more deaths than it caused.”
Nuclear power also prevented about 64 gigatonnes of carbon from being released into the atmosphere between 1971 and 2009. In other words, according to the report, it cut about 15 times more emissions than it has created.
Still, nuclear power is far from perfect. It also comes with a powerful stigma that’s proven unshakable thus far.
Scientists are working on cheaper and safer reactor designs that might make it possible to scale up nuclear power. Molten-salt reactors are a leading candidate, since they promise to destroy existing nuclear waste and wouldn’t melt down like current fission reactors do (should we stop tending them for whatever reason).
Until those designs pan out on an industrial scale, however, we’ll have to deal with a growing amount of radioactive waste and the higher likelihood of a nuclear-environmental catastrophe.
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NOW WATCH: If you think China’s air is bad, you should see the water
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Apple has been granted a patent for a projector that uses augmented reality technology, Patently Apple reports.
Apple’s augmented reality projector includes two key pieces of technology.
First of all, it has a camera that scans an environment like a room or an office. It builds a digital model of that space, and detects which surfaces it can project images onto. The second part of the AR projector would be, well, the projector, which changes what the user sees.
This isn’t Apple’s first patent for an augmented reality projector. Patently Apple points out that Apple already gained a patent for a similar projector in October.
The new patent filing from Apple shows a system that brings digital content such as eBooks and movies into the real world by projecting them onto surfaces. That could make people more likely to shell out for purchases if they appear to be physical.
It’s important to note the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality. Virtual reality (often abbreviated as “VR”) creates an entirely new world for people to explore. But augmented reality (abbreviated as “AR”) takes an existing environment and changes it.
Just because Apple filed a patent for an augmented reality projector doesn’t mean that it’s going to release one. The company files lots of patents, in part to protect its ideas, but also as a marketing tool. In the past the company has patented outlandish projects like a digital screen that can be rolled up like a newspaper.
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NOW WATCH: Here’s how the iPad Pro stacks up against the Surface Pro 4
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Vatican City (AFP) – He conquered the United States in September, is just back from a hugely successful trip to Africa … and now Pope Francis is an unlikely inspiration for rappers around the world.
And it is all thanks to an AFP photograph that has gone viral on social media.
Gianluigi Guercia’s snap of Francis speaking during a visit to a camp for displaced people in Central African Republic on Sunday captures the 78-year-old pontiff in classic rapper pose.
Holding his microphone in his right hand with his fingers wrapped around the top of it, the pontiff holds out his left hand horizontally, as if counting out beats.
Twitter-wits have had a field day with the image, making up thousands of imaginary papal rap lyrics under the hashtag #popebars.
Most were irreverent but tinged with affection, reflecting how Francis has successfully crafted an image as both likeable and a bit cool with his modest personal style and his efforts to make the Church more relevant
One of the best was posted by @_2pee.
t read: Biblically I’m on fire/Lyrically I inspire/So one day when I retire/Heaven is all I require.
@FloydSupreme offered: “God had a mixtape/he named it the Bible/Jesus had a rap crew/called it the disciples.
What most of the rappers may not have realised is that the slightly stooped, MC-style stance Francis adopts in Guercia’s image is the product of chronic back pain caused by sciatica.
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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A drill to test terrorism preparedness at a leading Kenyan university led to a stampede in which one person died and 20 others were injured, the institution said Monday.
Strathmore University said in a statement that one staff member had died as a result of injuries received during the drill aimed at testing the preparedness of the university community and emergency response team in the event of an attack.
Some students told local radio station Capital FM that loud bangs and people pretending to be extremist attackers caused panic at the university, causing everyone to flee to the exits. Memories of the April 2 attack by four gunmen from Somali extremist group al-Shabab that killed 147 people are still fresh with many Kenyans, especially university students.
Previously, one student died and 141 others were injured after students of a Nairobi university stampeded after they mistook a loud blast caused by an electrical fault for a terrorist attack.
In October some students of Moi university vacated the school accommodation on campus grounds fearing an attack after the administration revealed that two students who were missing may have joined al-Shabab.
Kenya has experienced a wave of bomb and grenade attacks since it sent its troops to Somalia to fight al-Shabab in October 2011.
Al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for its troop presence in Somalia. Kenyan troops are now part of African Union troops bolstering Somalia’s weak government against al-Shabab’s insurgency.
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Microsoft has laid off 30 employees who were working on HoloLens, the augmented reality headset, in Israel with 30 more being relocated within the company, Israeli news site Ynet reports.
In a statement, the company did not give a reason for the layoffs, describing it as a “shift of jobs across the organization.” It’s unclear where the 30 that remain will be relocated.
According to Ynet, an Israeli news website, the 60 jobs come from engineering. Those who were contract workers were laid off immediately with permanent employees given one month to find another job within the company.
HoloLens is a $3,000 (£1,900) augmented reality headset that runs Windows Holographic, a version of the company’s operating system. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has emphasised the importance of the headset numerous times, describing it as a “category creation” device.
Business Insider has reached out to Microsoft to confirm the lay offs and what they mean for HoloLens. We will update the post when we hear back.
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NOW WATCH: These 25-year-old BFFs are Instagram stars thanks to their crazy beards
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The Bank of England published its financial stability report on Tuesday and it’s full of useful charts and graphs about threats to the UK’s banking system.
On the whole, the financial world is looking more stable now than during the Summer, which was dominated by Greek political instability and market crashes in China.
But lots of risks still remain and some, like the threat of a cyber attack or a downturn in Asian economies, worry the Bank of England more than ever.
The BOE has long been concerned about buy-to-let, because landlords are seen as more vulnerable to an increase in mortgage rates than owner-occupiers.
Here’s the BOE:
Strong growth in buy-to-let lending, and the potential for underwriting standards to slip, may have implications for financial stability.
UK banks have strong ties with China. This is great when the country is growing strongly but can pose a risk when there’s a downturn.
The BOE said:
Crystallisation of these risks could pose a threat to UK financial stability, particularly if shocks to asset prices were amplified by fragile market liquidity. This vulnerability came to the fore in August 2015, when an episode of intense volatility in some markets materialised against the backdrop of concerns among market participants about a possible slowdown in economic growth in China.
Cyber attacks on financial institutions are costly to protect against and dangerous if they succeed. The central bank is trying to encourage lenders to do more to protect themselves.
The BOE said:
The risk from cyber attack has grown over time, reflecting increased use of technology in financial services. Firms need to build their resilience to cyber attacks, develop the ability to recover quickly from attacks, and ensure effective governance — which means viewing cyber risk as a strategic priority, rather than a narrow ‘technology’ issue.
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London (AFP) – Topless women out, female luminaries in: the latest edition of the famously titillating Pirelli calendar presented in London by US photographer Annie Leibovitz has won praise for its feminist makeover.
The Huffington Post’s UK edition called the images “inspiring” and “stunning”, while the Daily Telegraph said the calendar had “swapped sex for substance”.
“It might only be pinned up at some enlightened garages, but the Pirelli calendar has signalled a break with history,” Adam Sherwin wrote in The Independent on Tuesday under the headline: “Pirelli calendar’s sexism replaced by ‘amazing women'”.
“Beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman. Thank you @annieleibovitz,” tweeted comedian Amy Schumer, one of the subjects of the black-and-white photo shoot.
The calendar presented on Monday features 12 “women of achievement” instead of the usual supermodels, including John Lennon’s 82-year-old widow Yoko Ono, singer Patti Smith and tennis star Serena Williams.
“It shouldn’t be such a big step but it is,” Leibovitz said, calling the idea of photographing distinguished women a “departure” for the company.
Launched in 1964 as an annual giveaway for garages that sold Pirelli tyres, the main calender has evolved from the cheesy to the arty end of the erotica spectrum.
Its glossy celebration of feminine curves has become integral to a brand that, thanks also to its Formula One links, has been described by one analyst as the Prada of the world of burning rubber.
In an interview with AFP at the company’s Milan headquarters earlier this year, Pirelli chief executive Marco Tronchetti had a reassuring message for fans of the annual collection of pictures of scantily-clad supermodels shot by leading photographers.
“It is the one thing Chinese, Italians and Russians can all agree on — we’ll never give it up,” Tronchetti said.
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