Hasta La Gadget!

When it comes to producing chipsets for Apple, Samsung used to be the main producer of the component, until recent years where TSMC began to take more orders and eventually became Apple’s primary supplier. However recent rumors have suggested that for the upcoming A9 that will be used in the next-gen iPhone, Samsung could be taking the lead.

Apparently this is something that Foxconn’s CEO isn’t too thrilled with, so much so that he recently admitted to lobbying for TSMC to take the lead on Apple’s orders. Why is this, you ask? Is there anything wrong with Samsung’s production? Hardly. In fact the reason why Foxconn’s CEO Terry Guo has been lobbying for TSMC is because he wants Taiwanese manufacturers to stick together.

Guo sees companies such as Samsung as a threat and rightfully so. After all Samsung apart from making chipsets for Apple, also makes their own chipsets, their own displays, their own memory components, and more. Given Samsung’s size it is easy for the company to dominate the smaller players in the industry which is why Guo wants Taiwanese manufacturers to band together to stave off the competition from the likes of Samsung.

That being said, recent reports have suggested that some of the orders will be going to TSMC in a last minute decision. It is unclear as to how many orders specifically have been given to TSMC but whether or not Guo’s lobbying had anything to do with this remains to be seen.

Foxconn CEO Lobbying For TSMC To Produce Apple’s A9 Chipset , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Antarctica may seem hostile to life, especially the continent’s vast and largely ice-free Dry Valleys. But new research shows there may be an entire world underground, with rivers of liquid salt water flowing to subsurface lakes, all of which could be teeming with microbial life.

One of the continent’s most unique features, the rust-red Blood Falls, may even be a “portal” into that subterranean world.

The “falls” are actually a brine, or salt water, mixed with iron from the bedrock below. As bacteria slowly chew the rock, the iron is released into the brine. The salt water and iron combination creates a distinct rust color when it mixes with oxygen as it reaches the surface, according to National Geographic.

Here’s a look at the falls, which emerge from the Taylor Glacier and flow into Lake Bonney in one of the Dry Valleys:

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During the study, researchers used a sensor in a helicopter to detect salt water flowing beneath the surface.

“We found, as expected, that there was something sourcing Blood Falls,” lead study author Jill Mikucki of the University of Tennessee told the Washington Post. “We found that these brines were more widespread than previously thought. They appear to connect these surface lakes that appear separated on the ground. That means there’s the potential for a much more extensive subsurface ecosystem, which I’m pretty jazzed about.”

Live Science reports that the research team found water stretching from the coast to at least 7.5 miles inland, as well as briny water flowing beneath the Taylor Glacier at least 3 miles deep, which is as far as the device can detect.

“This unique feature is much more than a curiosity –- it is a portal into the Antarctic subsurface, a hint at what lies beneath,” Mikucki told New Scientist.

Where the briny water flows, so too may microbial life.

“Over billions of years of evolution, microbes seem to have adapted to conditions in almost all surface and near-surface environments on Earth. Tiny pore spaces filled with hyper-saline brine staying liquid down to -15 Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) may pose one of the greatest challenges to microbes,” Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist and coauthor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a news release. “Our electromagnetic data indicate that margins of Antarctica may shelter a vast microbial habitat, in which limits of life are tested by difficult physical and chemical conditions.”

And the distinctive Blood Falls is where it all comes to the surface.

“Blood Falls is the only known surface manifestation of these deep brine systems and has been shown to contain a viable ecosystem with numerable microbial cells,” the researchers wrote in their study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications. “Blood Falls reveals how microbial metabolism can release iron from underlying bedrock, which is ultimately discharged to the surface or below ground to Lake Bonney.”

The discovery may also hint at how life may appear on other worlds, including Mars, which has an environment similar to that of the Dry Valleys, and some of the frozen moons of Jupiter, which may contain subsurface liquid water.

“The subsurface is actually pretty attractive when you think about life on other planets. It’s cold and dark and has all these strikes against it, but it’s protected from the harsh environment on the surface,” Mikucki told the Washington Post.

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This is a wild fox who lives in the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone in Ukraine. And here, you can watch him assemble a “five-decker sandwich.”

According to the BBC, a team from Radio Free Europe had encountered the fox after stopping their cars near the nuclear power plant. The humans tossed the fox some bread and pieces of sausage, and the animal promptly — and expertly — went about creating a “quintuple-decker sandwich.”

Radio Free Europe notes that humans haven’t occupied the exclusion zone since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. “There now appears to be an increasing number of foxes, wolves, and bears” in the area, the news outlet writes.

The video of the fox has gone viral this week, as netizens everywhere praise the animal for his sandwich-making skills.

“Who needs opposable thumbs when you have teeth?” quipped Time.com.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference is upon us and with it comes bits and pieces of Windows 10 that may or may not arrive in July. But along with the new operating system, there is a good deal of speculation about Microsoft hardware to go along with it. Yes, it’s now time to speculate about the Surface Pro 4, and Chinese … Continue reading

The Google app for Android is about to roll out some new updates, adding an additional 70 Google Now cards to its repertoire. The latest Now cards are designed to add new functionality to popular apps like Spotify, RunKeeper, Airbnb, and eBay. The Now cards from Google make it possible to interact with your apps without having to open them. … Continue reading