Hasta La Gadget!

LOS ANGELES — Three people were shot Wednesday night in a large throng of Halloween revelers in Hollywood, sending a flood of police into the area to control the crowd.

Police Sgt. Andrew Chao of the Hollywood Station told City News Service that the shooting took place around 10 p.m. on Hollywood Boulevard.

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Back on October 18, we reported that Megaupload’s founder Kim Dotcom planned to launch a new file sharing service named Mega. Mega will replace the banned Megaupload file-sharing website, which now displays nothing more than a spiffy FBI notice. The new file-sharing network has been announced, and is set to launch in January.

The new website is said to be raid-proof due to hosting outside of the US and an encryption system that absolves Mega of responsibility for hosting copyrighted material. All files uploaded to Mega will be encrypted before they’re uploaded. An encryption key will be provided with each download that lets the downloader decrypt the file.

Because Mega will have no way to view the files uploaded to its system, Dotcom says it cannot be liable for any infringing material. Said Dotcom, “The new Mega will not be threatened by US prosecutors. The new Mega avoids any dealings with US hosters, US domains and US backbone providers and has changed the way it operates to avoid another takedown.”

Dotcom’s house was raided earlier this year, and he served a brief stint in jail. He’s slated for an extradition hearing in January, and faces prosecution in the US. Mega will go live sometime in January; whether it ends up being another Megaupload, destined to be raided and shutdown, is anyone’s guess.

[via Guardian]

Mega announced by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

China’s supercomputer development is as much driven by national reputation as by military prowess and science; the country chose to build the Sunway BlueLight MPP with domestic chips knowing that it wouldn’t get the absolute performance crown. It won’t be quite so modest the next time around. China’s National University of Defense Technology wants the Tianhe-2 supercomputer due in 2015 to crack an extremely high 100 petaflops, or five times faster than the record-setting Titan over in the US and a whopping 40 times faster than the Tianhe-1A. Before we hand the crown over, though, Top 500 supercomputer chart keeper Jack Dongarra notes to ITworld that China might have to sprint if it wants the symbolic title: the EU, Japan and US are all striving for the same benchmark, and they’re not backing off anytime soon. The nation’s trump card may have to be long-term plans for an exaflop-strength supercomputer by 2018, at which point we suspect the bragging will simmer down. For awhile.

Filed under: Misc, Science

China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer could hit 100 petaflops in 2015, may have a race on its hands originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 03:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just how many ways do you think there are around to make good use of QR codes? We have seen them being implemented at graveyards on tombstones before, which is rather creepy when you think about it, but here is yet another way of implementing QR codes without having to be an advertisement of sorts. I am referring to the QR Code Clock – the name itself says it all. The brainchild of Michael Ciuffo, the QR Code Clock could be said to be, in his own words, “technological convenience that really isn’t convenient.” We totally get what he means – most of the time, clocks are meant to be easy to read and decipher, whether they are of the analog or digital variety, but with the QR Code Clock, it is virtually impossible to crack unlike those brain busting watches from Tokyoflash, as all you need to do is snap a photo with your smartphone while using the relevant app in order to tell the time.

Definitely something only you and the other geeky minded folks will be able to appreciate. As for other folks who stroll by your home, they will most probably be wondering just what kind of weird device is there sitting on your shelf, changing its pattern every single second. It is rather ironic that by the time you get an answer from your QR code scanner app on the current time, it would be a few seconds slow.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Chinese e-tailer to launch brick and mortar supermarkets filled with only QR codes, Apple and SBB come to agreement over iOS 6 Clock app ,

By Angus McDowall

RIYADH, Nov 1 (Reuters) – At least 22 people were killed when a fuel truck crashed into a flyover in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday, triggering an explosion that brought down an industrial building, Saudi state television reported.

Al-Ekhbariya television quoted a Saudi civil defence official as saying that at least 111 people were also injured in the incident.

The civil defence department confirmed there were deaths from a traffic accident involving a gas tanker that hit a bridge in eastern Riyadh, causing a gas leak and an explosion in a nearby heavy machinery and vehicles warehouse, according to the state news agency SPA.

“The truck driver was surprised by a road accident on its route, causing it to crash into one of the pillars of the bridge,” spokesman Captain Mohamed Hubail Hammadi said.

He said the incident resulted in a “number of deaths and injuries”, without giving specific details.

The civil defence chief, Saed al-Tweijri, said the fire had been brought under control. He blamed the tanker driver for the accident, which he said had resulted in the gas leak setting off an explosion in the warehouse.

The building, several storeys high, was almost levelled by the blast, with only one corner left standing. Several adjacent buildings were damaged and nearby vehicles, including a minibus on the flyover, set on fire, witnesses said.

Television footage and pictures posted on social media showed a body lying by burnt-out vehicles and at least two charred bodies seated in a car.

More than 100 emergency personnel were combing the wreckage on the flyover and searching for victims in the rubble of the building, which housed the operations of Zahid Tractor, a distributor of heavy machinery.

“I was inside the building when the blast came. Then boom, the building collapsed. Furniture, chairs and cabinets blasted into the room I was in,” said survivor Kushnoo Akhtara, a 55-year-old Pakistani worker, who was covered in dirt and bleeding from multiple cuts over his body. “My brother is still inside under the rubble. There are lots of people in there.”

Saudi Arabia is still on holiday after the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast, which began last Friday.

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