Alternative News

How Mobile Devices Are Changing Africa

"Mobile phones are kicking off a revolution in Africa, with everyone from farmers to villagers relying on apps to make electronic payments, check on expiration dates for medicine, and predict future storms or the best prices for produce. More kids in Africa have access to the Internet than consistent electricity. Nobody owns a PC or can access a fixed-line telephone, so mobile phones are a conduit for everything from email to news to making payments via SMS. Many people on the continent also own phones equipped with flashlights and radios and the percentage of the population equipped with mobile devices is primed to explode over the next few years." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHow Mobile Devices Are Changing Africa

Is Apple Becoming A War Profiteer?

"Apple has some cozy relationships with the U.S. government. Last month, CEO Tim Cook had a nice seat at Obama's State of The Union Address. There's the online Apple Store for Government, where federal employees and military personnel can get special pricing (paging Laurence Vance). There's having Al 'Global Warming Climate Change' Gore on the Board of Directors. There's the 8 million iPads sold to indoctrination centers (aka "schools"). And now (1 month after Obama's speech) news comes out that the U.S. Army has an order for 650,000 iOS devices." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIs Apple Becoming A War Profiteer?

Mark Zuckerberg Launches Political Campaign Group

"The 28-year-old billionaire is forming a political campaign group that is expected to focus initially on liberalising the US immigration and visa system. Work on the group will reunite him with Joe Green, his room-mate at Harvard University, who also went on to be a successful technology entrepreneur. His new campaign group is to be fronted by Jon Lerner and Rob Jesmer, political consultants from the Right wing of the Republican party. Rob Jesmer was the campaign manager for John Cornyn for US Senate; the John McCain Presidential campaign and the Southeast Regional Political Director, RNC; Chief of Staff, Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMark Zuckerberg Launches Political Campaign Group

These Startups Are Betting Everything on Bitcoin

"BitInstant is just one of several Bitcoin startups attracting funding from established venture firms and investors at a valuation in the millions. Coinsetter, a New York startup working on a foreign exchange trading platform for Bitcoins, recently raised $500,000 led by Tribeca Venture Partners and SecondMarket at a valuation that we hear is in the 'low single-digit millions.' Coinbase, a startup that provides a digital wallet for Bitcoin transactions, has raised $600,000 to date from Y Combinator, IDG Ventures and others. (Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins who had a disputed role in the founding of Facebook, are also big Bitcoin investors.)" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThese Startups Are Betting Everything on Bitcoin

NYC Taxi Medallions Sell for $1.1 Million

"More regulation madness. In New York City, Taxi prices are so out of line with what free market rates would be that corporations are now willing to pay over $1 million to own a taxi and collect the fares, which is what the ownership of a medallion allows. In a free market, even allowing for registration with the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, the cost would be the registration fee ($100?) and that would be it. Below is the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission report for February, which shows 4 corporate taxi medallions were sold for $1,000,000 and 2 sold for $1,100,000." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNYC Taxi Medallions Sell for $1.1 Million

The End of the Battery – Getting All Charged Up over Supercapacitors

"'Is this for real?' Doug was referring to an article in the recent issue of Nature Communications on a novel way to mass-produce so-called superconductors on the super-cheap – using no more equipment than the average home CD/DVD burner. Hacked together by a group of research scientists at UCLA, the ingenious technique is a way of producing layers of microscopically nuanced lattices called graphene, an essential component of many superconductor designs. It holds the promise of rapidly dropping prices for what was until now a very expensive process." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe End of the Battery – Getting All Charged Up over Supercapacitors

Google Introduces Way to Manage Your Data Beyond the Grave

"Death is Nature’s way of telling you it’s time to get off the Internet. But when you finally shuffle off this mortal coil, you leave something behind: all your email and other digital assets. That’s a huge problem not only for the deceased—once you’re on the wrong side of the Great Beyond, there’s no way to delete those incriminating messages—but also any relatives who might want to access your (former) life. And it’s a problem Google’s seeking to solve with the new Inactive Account Manager." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGoogle Introduces Way to Manage Your Data Beyond the Grave

Hacking an Airplane With Only an Android Phone

"So it looks like someone could hack a jetliner. With an Android smartphone. Awesome. At the Hack In The Box conference in Amsterdam, security consultant Hugo Teso demonstrated PlaneSploit, an app he developed that can take control of certain systems aboard an airplane and cause it to change direction or just crash itself into the ground. Hugo’s no terrorist, mind you. He developed the app to point out the glaring, frightening, insane security holes in most planes’ onboard flight systems. His demonstration was done in a simulated environment, but the methods and effects, he says, are exactly the same as what could happen with a real plane." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHacking an Airplane With Only an Android Phone

Biofuel breakthrough turns virtually any plant into hydrogen

"Researchers at Virginia Tech announced Thursday that their latest breakthrough in hydrogen extraction technology could lead to widespread adoption of the substance as a fuel due to its ease of availability in virtually all plant matter, a reservoir previously impossible to tap. The new process uses a cocktail of 13 enzymes to strip plant matter of xylose, a sugar that exists in plant cells. The resulting hydrogen is of an such a 'high purity' that researchers said they were able to approach 100 percent extraction, opening up a potential market for a much cheaper source of hydrogen than anything available today." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBiofuel breakthrough turns virtually any plant into hydrogen