When we last checked in with Jolan Van der Wiel, the Dutch designer was mixing iron filings and plastic to cast gravity-shaped furniture . This spring Van der Wiel returned, with an exhibition showing the process of sculpting with clay mixed with iron filings. And it’s bizarre.
Next time you’re in Shenzhen, “the Silicon Valley of mainland China,” don’t stay at the St. Regis hotel. Sure, it looks nice and everything. And those iPad-powered “digital butlers” sound neat. But really, the system is so littered with security vulnerabilities that a hacker on the other side of the planet can easily break in and turn off your lights when you least expect it.
When it comes to ASUS, buying a full-size Android tablet has usually meant venturing past the $300 mark; even the Transformer Book T100 set you back $349 when it first came out, and that was considered a steal. That’s no longer a problem in 2014….
Lenovo has pulled all 10-inch and smaller Windows tablets from US shelves, citing a lack of demand. The world’s largest Windows computer maker had two models on the market: the 8-inch, stylus-equipped Miix 2 and the ThinkPad 8. A spokesman told PC…
The tech world isn’t short of ways to track you, but if you’re yet to embrace wearables and don’t have a smartphone, it’s still possible to fall off the grid. GTX is targeting the elderly, young children, and potential kidnapping victims traveling to unstable countries with its GPS SmartSole, a waterproof insole that hides wireless tracking technology under your heel. … Continue reading
Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s all-you-can-eat ebook subscription service, has officially launched, with more than 600,000 books that Kindle ereader and app users can choose from. Priced at $9.99 per month, the subscription covers both ebooks and a selection of Audible audiobooks of which there are more than 2,000, Amazon says. Details on Kindle Unlimited leaked earlier this week, after test pages … Continue reading
Spinning off from Microsoft in the near future, Nokia MixRadio – originally called Nokia Music – will become its own entity. This service will eventually be able to work with Apple’s iOS for iPhone and iPad as well as Google’s Android for tablets and smartphones. For now, the service continues to work with Windows Phone. Nokia MixRadio works in a … Continue reading
Right now, the smartphone world is more or less split right down the middle with Apple’s iOS as well as Google’s Android mobile operating systems dominating the market. There is, of course, a third pillar that is supported by Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 (I will leave BlackBerry OS out of the equation), which is growing slowly and steadily with Nokia being the main driver behind sales of Windows Phone-powered devices. This time around, the Microsoft-owned company has announced the Nokia Lumia 635 that runs on Windows Phone 8.1, which has been touted to be the most personal Windows Phone experience to date.
It will feature a 4.5” FWVGA resolution (854 x 480 pixels) that can display up to 16 million colors, sporting Nokia’s ClearBlack technology accompanied by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to add a dimension of toughness to the mix. Not only that, it also boasts of a wide viewing angle, coming in handy whenever you show off your favorite photos to a bunch of family members and friends.
Running on a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, this makes the Nokia Lumia 635 a mid-range performer, which ought to be more than enough to handle all of the everyday tasks that one associates with smartphones. In fact, it will do everything “normal” that you ask it to with aplomb, as the 512MB RAM offers decent support. There is also 8GB of internal memory for you to work with – meaning power users might want to avoid it and settle for something more high end instead.
Apart from that, the Nokia Lumia 635 embraces its existence with several electrifying phone shell colors that one can choose from, letting you switch according to your current mood. Not only that, the new Windows Phone 8.1 personal assistant known as Cortana will hopefully prove to help you out throughout the day.
Just in case the 8GB of built-in memory is not enough, there is another 7GB of free cloud storage on OneDrive, giving you plenty of space to stash all of the other apps, photos, videos, and more that you love. A 5MP auto focus camera with 4x digital zoom that is capable of recording 720p video as well is located at the back, all of it packed into a chassis that measures 5.09” x 2.62” x 0.36”, where it tips the scales at 4.73 ounces.
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[ Nokia Lumia 635 announced, headed for T-Mobile and AT&T copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
SYDNEY (AP) — World-renowned AIDS researchers and activists heading to an AIDS conference in Australia were on the Malaysian jetliner shot down over Ukraine, officials said Friday, news that sparked an outpouring of grief across the global scientific community.
Unconfirmed reports said up to 100 passengers were going to the Victoria state capital of Melbourne to attend the 20th International AIDS conference, which starts Sunday, Victoria Premier Denis Napthine said, though he hastened to add that reports were conflicting and it was far too premature to give a precise figure. “There’s been confirmed a number of senior people who were coming out here who were researchers, who were medical scientists, doctors, people who’ve been to the forefront of dealing with AIDS across the world,” Napthine told reporters in Melbourne. “The exact number is not yet known, but there is no doubt it’s a substantial number.”
The plane, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, crashed Thursday with 298 people on board. American intelligence authorities believe a surface-to-air missile brought down the aircraft, but it was not yet clear who fired it.
Among the passengers was former president of the International AIDS Society Joep Lange, a well-known researcher from the Netherlands, opposition leader Bill Shorten said in parliament.
“There are Australians who would have planned to be at the airport tomorrow night to greet friends and family — amongst them, some of the world’s leading AIDS experts,” Shorten said. “The cost of this will be felt in many parts of the world.”
Chris Beyrer, president-elect of the International AIDS Society, said if reports of Lange’s death were true, “then the HIV/AIDS movement has truly lost a giant.”
Nobel laureate Dr. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of the AIDS virus and president of the International AIDS Society, paid tribute to Lange in a speech in the Australian capital, Canberra.
“Joep was a wonderful person — a great professional … but more than that, a wonderful human being,” she said. “If it is confirmed, it will be a terrible loss for all of us. I have no words, really, to try to express my sadness. I feel totally devastated.”
She later told reporters the conference would continue out of respect for the lives lost: “Because we know that it’s really what they would like us to do.”
Lange had been working on HIV since the earliest years of the epidemic, participating in clinical trials and research across the world, Barre-Sinoussi said. He had dedicated his life, she said, to “the benefit of mankind.”
Sharon Lewin, co-chair of the conference, called Lange a true renaissance man, who also had a keen interest in arts and literature.
“He was passionate about his job and passionate about global health and improving people’s lives in low-income countries,” Lewin said. “He was quite visionary actually, I think since the very early days of the epidemic and could see what the challenges were that lay ahead.”
Robin Weiss, an emeritus professor at University College London, said Lange’s death was comparable to that of Jonathan Mann, who led the World Health Organization’s first AIDS department — and who was killed after his flight to Geneva was sabotaged 17 years ago. Weiss noted the AIDS community has grown much larger since then, lessening the impact of any one person’s death in particular.
“It’s now a much bigger pond,” he said. Weiss said that while we are still awaiting details about the identities of other passengers bound for the Melbourne conference, the AIDS community was likely robust enough to bounce back. “It sounds callous but if any of us (working on HIV) are in a plane crash or have a heart attack, it’s a loss for the people who know us,” he said. “It’s a moment of great sadness, but I don’t think (Lange’s) loss alone sets us back in the fight against AIDS. The momentum to continue is still there.”
Dr. Jennifer Cohn of Doctors Without Borders said the AIDS community would honor the loss of their fellow researchers by “re-doubling (their) commitment and efforts to address the HIV pandemic,” in a statement.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will deliver an address at the AIDS conference, which brings together thousands of scientists and activists to discuss the latest developments in HIV and AIDS research.
WHO’s Geneva-based spokesman Glenn Thomas, who was en route to the conference, was also among the dead, said Christian Lindmeier, spokesman for WHO’s Western Pacific region.
“Everybody’s devastated,” Lindmeier said. “It’s a real blow.”
Flags at government buildings across Victoria will be lowered to half-staff on Friday and will remain that way throughout the conference, the state premier said.
House of Representatives Speaker Bronwyn Bishop called for a moment of silence in parliament to honor the victims, adding that she was scheduled to address the AIDS conference on Monday.
“I know there will be many empty spots,” Bishop said. “And I think that what we’re doing is mourning with all of the world and all that had been lost. And we want to see justice but in a measured way.”
The International AIDS Society issued a statement expressing its grief over the news that several of its colleagues and friends were on board.
“At this incredibly sad and sensitive time the IAS stands with our international family and sends condolences to the loved ones of those who have been lost to this tragedy,” the group said.
Reginald Wells is the deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Office of Human Resources and also serves as the agency’s chief human capital officer. Since 2007, SSA has been ranked in the top 10 large agencies in the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings.
Wells spoke about managing Social Security’s nationwide workforce with Tom Fox, a guest writer for On Leadership and vice president for leadership and innovation at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. Fox also heads up their Center for Government Leadership.
Q. What have been some of your biggest workforce issues at the Social Security Administration?
A. The way in which we receive our resources has been a real challenge from a human capital perspective. The hiring freezes and the budget issues really have tended to wreak havoc with our ability to hire. We hire in spurts and sputters, and that tends to make it difficult to get the talent we need. There are also issues with morale and engagement because of the negative rhetoric about public servants. We’ve had to battle that one ferociously. As you know, the federal employee survey results have shown consistently that those kinds of pressures are starting to get into the psyche of federal employees. It’s probably making it harder for us to recruit the next generation of public servants.
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