Social Media Experiment Freaks People out, Exposes Lack of Privacy

When posting online, how much personal information is too much? A lot of people post statuses, pictures, and videos on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that often reveal more than they intend to.

For example, someone could simply be posting a selfie shot in their garden, but other people (like would-be stalkers, for example) might be able to identify where they live from that photo alone.

Jack Vale Social Media Experiment 620x310magnify

This is the premise that Jack Vale worked with in his social media experiment. Jack began by searching Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter profiles of people within his current location. He noted down personal information that these users have posted and then approached them in real-life. He then proceeded to reveal the personal (and often, private) information that he was able to gather, which lead to more than a few shocked reactions.

While Jack’s video is mildly humorous, it’s worth noting that internet privacy and security isn’t something that should be ignored these days. According to Trend Micro, many people have already had their identities, bank information, and money stolen through social media scams and phishing emails, so remember to be vigilant so you won’t become a victim.

If you haven’t already, then maybe it’s time to tweak your accounts’ privacy settings before it’s too late.

[via Laughing Squid]

The Fastest Way to Cool Down Beer

The Fastest Way to Cool Down Beer

Beer. I prefer to drink it cold.

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What in the World Is This Creepy Experiment?

What in the World Is This Creepy Experiment?

I think this is probably the strangest, funniest, most unique historical photo you’ll see today. What the hell is going on? Is this an experiment? Why are these blue-dressed men torturing that poor sitting buddha? What are those scary instruments on his head? Is that the Ewok throne for C-3PO? So many questions! Make your own guess about this rare scientific photo in the comments, below.

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This Tower Exists Solely for Dropping Things

This Tower Exists Solely for Dropping Things

The 475-foot "drop tower" in Bremen, Germany, is not a rocket disguised as a building, but a giant hollow tube used for experimentally dropping things—letting go of objects, watching them plummet toward the ground, and using those nearly 10 seconds of free-fall as a way to study the effects of weightlessness.

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University of Texas students send yacht off-course with GPS exploit (video)

DNP University of Texas' yacht hack illustrates GPS signal vulnerability video

Students from the University of Texas gave us another reason not to mess with the Lone Star state: they’ll hack your yacht. In cooperation with a luxury boat’s owners, the Longhorns manipulated their $80 million vessel’s nav system, covertly guiding it off-course — all without the crew ever suspecting foul play. By transmitting spoofed global positioning system signals toward the craft, the students tricked its drivers into correcting a non-existent, three-degree course deviation, thus leading them off track. With their work done, the Texans believe this shows exactly how easy it is to exploit civil-band GPS signals. College kids may have conned the helm this time, but it isn’t too far-fetched to think pirates could do the same. Our timbers are shivering just thinking about it.

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Source: The Houston Chronicle

Watch How Silly People’s Reaction Times Are in Slow Motion

This is fantastic. Distort measured people’s reaction time by making them catch a falling ruler to see how quickly (or slowly) their brains can translate what they see into what they do. Putting the video to slow motion emphasizes how silly our reaction times can be. Some of us are so slow we might not even catch the ruler!

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Genius.box wants to put a different experiment on your doorstep every month

Geniusbox wants to put a different experiment on your doorstep every month

There are a lot of things you can have delivered to your home on a monthly basis: magazines, hot sauces, underwear and beer are just a few. The second place winner at the Husky Startup Challenge, genius.box, takes that basic concept but replaces the Fruit of the Looms with simple to perform science experiments. Aimed at children between the ages of eight and 12, the projects inside each package teach a basic lesson in science, technology, engineering or math through a hands-on experience. All of the materials needed for each experiment are included, along with a lesson plan, instructions and “factoid” cards with tidbits of interesting trivia, such as the number of elements on the periodic scale.

The two boxes trotted out for demo day by creators Kate Pipa and Shivangi Shah covered the science and technology portions of the STEM equation. One was a kitchen chemistry set for growing crystals and the other a simple electronics kit, based partially around parts of a Snap Circuits set, that has kids building an electromagnet and lighting up an LED. This isn’t exactly a return to hardcore chemistry sets of the past (you’ll find no radioactive materials or poisons in here), but it’s certainly a step in the right direction for an America whose love affair with science is on the rocks. Every four weeks a child would get a whole new educational playset for the target price of $20 a month. Which is quite a bit cheaper than your standard chemistry set or electronics kit. To be kept in the loop as genius.box works to get off the ground, sign up at the more coverage link.

Gallery: genius.box

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Japan Uses Robot Rats to Terrorize Real Rats

Lab rats have it bad enough having to jump through hoops and perform in order to be studied, but now life just got worse for the furry rodents. Scientists at Japan’s Waseda University have created a robotic rat designed to terrorize their organic lab rats, inducing stress and depression so their reactions can be studied.
RobotRat
Scientists need to depress rats in order to do things like test drugs for depression. I guess it’s hard to make a rat depressed, but with a robot rat harassing them constantly, they will be sad sacks in no time. The robot can be programmed to chase or attack a rat, or can become its only source of food.

Talk about psychological torture. These rats will be really bummed out and soon they will fear robots just like us.

[via Gizmodo via IEEE Spectrum via Geekosystem]

Plants Harvested For Electricity

Plants Harvested For ElectricityHmmm, what we are doing to plants at the moment could very well be what machines do to humanity in the future – that is, just as the Matrix trilogy depicts, use us as batteries. Well, a team of scientists have done some research into how plants work apart from the usual photosynthesis process, and managed to find a method that will allow us to harvest electricity that has been generated from plant roots.

Plants, as with any other living thing, is guaranteed to generate waste, but thankfully, plants deposit their into the soil as well as surrounding water where their roots have painstakingly searched out for throughout its growth. Bacteria which feed on such waste will leave spare electrons, hydrogen ions, and carbon dioxide behind, which is why Bert Hamelers and his team from Wageningen University in the Netherlands intends to make use such ions by sending them to a cathode, while the electrons remained behind, creating an electric potential difference – or in common parlance, voltage. Basically, a test system showed that it could generate 0.44W per square meter after being fitted with such plant-based fuel cells. Perhaps there are ways to increase the production of electricity by a massive amount sometime down the road?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: DC Fast Chargers To Triple In The US, Thanks To Nissan, Ford, Nissan, And Daimler To Work Of Fuel Cell Car,

Huawei tests 2Tbps data transmission over Vodafone’s German network, calls it a ‘first’

Huawei notches 2Tbps data transmission over Vodafone's network in Germany, calls it a 'world's first'

As terabit speeds go, Huawei’s latest fiber feat falls on the lower end of recent industry achievements. At 2Tbps, the Chinese company’s field test — one it’s hailing as a “world’s first” — comes nowhere close to the 100Tbps-plus experiments conducted by the likes of NEC and NICT. But top speed isn’t entirely the point here; real-world performance is. By leveraging existing fiber infrastructure owned by Vodafone across portions of lower Germany, Huawei was able to successfully demonstrate two record-breaking, 200G transmissions: one spanning 1,500km and the other 3,325km over an “ultra-long-haul solution.” To give you a bit of perspective on just what sort of data haul theoretical networks of this kind can achieve, Huawei claims this ultra-fast connection is “equivalent to downloading 40 HD videos in one second.” Impressive, indeed. But don’t go ditching that TWC wideband or FiOS contract just yet. While it’s nice to know this tech exists, practical deployment is still a ways off. Until then, gigabit’s the buzz word.

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Huawei and Vodafone Complete World’s First 2 Tbit/s WDM Field Trial

Shenzhen, China, 24 January 2013:

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology solutions provider, and Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies, today announced the successful trial of 2 Tbit/s optical fiber transmission technologies on Vodafone’s live network. The field trial achieved 2 Tbit/s transmission capabilities of over 3,325km. This provides a data highway capacity 20-times higher than current commercially deployed 100Gbit/s systems and has a speed equivalent to downloading 40 HD videos in one second. This marks an important step forward for optical transport technology advances beyond 100G.

Traffic on carrier backbone networks is growing exponentially, driving global momentum for commercial 100G deployments and attracting attention on optical transport beyond 100G. Riding on cutting-edge technologies such as flex oDSP, super SD-FEC, and flex modulation format, this field trial achieved a record-breaking transmission distance of 1,500 km using a super-channel PDM-16QAM-based high spectral efficiency solution, and a second record-breaking transmission distance of 3,325 km using a super-channel Nyquist PDM-QPSK-based ultra-long-haul solution. Both transmissions were on a link with G.652 fibers and erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) without electrical regeneration. The link used in the trial was on Vodafone’s backbone network, passing through a few cities across middle and south Germany.

“We are at the forefront of global 100G deployments, and have taken the lead in delivering key breakthroughs in technologies beyond 100G. Through collaboration with Vodafone and other leading international operators and customer-centric R&D, Huawei is always ready to build advanced optical networks for customers,” said Jack Wang, president of Huawei’s transport network product line.

To help customers optimize their overall technical architecture and adopt next-generation transport networks, Huawei conducted the world’s first 2T WDM field trial and pan- European 400G field trial in 2012, and also unveiled a series of scientific research achievements in optical transmission. According to Ovum, Huawei ranks No. 1 in the WDM/OTN, 40G, 100G, and global optical network markets, as of Q3 2012.

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