Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ Today, Samsung is announcing the next generation of their Galaxy-brand phablets, the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+. Samsung's phablets have been one of their greatest smartphone success stories, finding traction in a market when many thought there wouldn't be a place for such a large phone. And while you will never see some competitors directly admit to it, products like the Note series have legitimized the phablet form factor... AnandTech
AT&T helped U.S. spy on Internet on a vast scale The National Security Agency's ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed N.S.A. documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. The NY Times
How to Install SteamOS in Virtualbox If you are a gamer or you read gaming news at all, you will probably know of SteamOS. It is a new operating system that Valve is working on for dedicated gaming computers. The Operating system is based on Linux and has a Debian x64 architecture as its base. While this is really cool and I am personally looking forward to the day when I we can use this OS for serious gaming, it is still in the Beta development stages. How-To Geek
On the origin of (robot) species Researchers led by the University of Cambridge have built a mother robot that can independently build its own children and test which one does best; and then use the results to inform the design of the next generation, so that preferential traits are passed down from one generation to the next. Without any human intervention or computer simulation beyond the initial command to build a robot capable of movement, the mother created children constructed of between one and five plastic cubes with a small motor inside. The University of Cambridge
And the New Yorker cartoon contest winner is ... a computer Since 2005, the back page of the New Yorker has usually featured a wordless, black-and-white cartoon, and the funniest reader-submitted caption gets published in a following issue. The magazine's caption contest has become a fan favorite over the last decade, and the cartoon department receives some 5,000 entries each week. This has become an overwhelming number of jokes to sift through – particularly for Bob Mankoff's assistant. Bloomberg
Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace On Monday mornings, fresh recruits line up for an orientation intended to catapult them into Amazon's singular way of working. They are told to forget the "poor habits" they learned at previous jobs, one employee recalled. When they "hit the wall" from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: "Climb the wall," others reported. To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles... The NY Times
A small, modular, efficient fusion plant It's an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away – and always will be. But now, finally, the joke may no longer be true: Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact tokamak fusion reactor – and it's one that might be realized in as little as a decade, they say. MIT
!!Con 2015 - Kevin Lynagh: I made a cell phone! (DON'T TELL THE FCC KTHX!)
We flew a simulated 747 at NASA and didn't crash or barf From a viewing spot in a high bay room at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, I peer through a glass window at a cab that simulates the cockpit of a commercial aircraft. The 70-ton base of the Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS) moves the cab up and down like an amusement park ride. "Are you guys thinking about flying?" Scott Reardon, the VMS facility manager, asks me and my co-worker Megan Geuss casually, as if we do this kind of thing every day. Ars Technica
IBM discovers Android serialization vulnerability allows arbitrary code execution IBM's x-force application security research team has discovered a security vulnerability in the way that Android handles deserialization and allows for arbitrary code execution and privilege escalation. In a blog post describing the vulnerability, security researcher Or Peles said that the vulnerability affected more than 55 percent of Android devices – from Android 4.3 to 5.1, and the first preview of Android's upcoming M release. ZDNet
How much video memory is enough? One question we haven't answered decisively in our recent series of graphics card reviews is: how much video memory is enough? More pressingly given the 4GB limit for Radeon R9 Fury cards: how much is too little? Will a 4GB video card run into performance problems in current games, and if so, when? In some ways, this question is harder to answer than one might expect. The Tech Report
Company in Canada gets U.S. patent for space elevator Exploring space while seated on Earth, gazing up on screens in museum theaters or at home via VR headsets. is exciting but the top imagination-grabber is the very idea of finding a way to access space. This is the present-day realm of creative thinking over space elevators, in the use of a giant tower to carry us to space. Scientists working on space elevators are thinking about materials and designs that can be used to access space as an alternative to rocket technology. Phys.org
CNN & CBC sued for pirating 31 second YouTube video CNN and Canada's CBC are being sued after the pair allegedly ripped a 31 second video from YouTube and used it in their broadcasts without a license. In addition to claims of copyright infringement, the media giants face allegations that they breached the anti-circumvention measures of the DMCA... TorrentFreak