Day: October 21, 2018

Armenia Opens $50 Million Bitcoin, Ethereum Mining Farm

Armenia has opened a cryptocurrency mining farm to the tune of $50 million. It reportedly mines Bitcoin and Ethereum and consists of 3,000 machines. Chepicap reports: The country’s first mining project, launched in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, is headed by Armenian real estate investment company Multi Group Concern and Malta-registered Omnia Tech International Company….


Not Exercising Worse For Your Health Than Smoking, Diabetes and Heart Disease, Study Reveals

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: We’ve all heard exercise helps you live longer. But a new study [published in the journal JAMA Network Open] goes one step further, finding that a sedentary lifestyle is worse for your health than smoking, diabetes and heart disease. Researchers retrospectively studied 122,007 patients who underwent exercise…


The Polyphonic Analog/Digital Synth Project

[Matt Bradshaw]’s entry in the Hackaday Prize is Polymod, a modular digital synthesizer which combines the modularity of an analog synth with the power of a digital synth. Each module (LFO, Envelope Generator, Amplifier, etc.) are connected with audio cables to others and the result is processed digitally to create music. The synth is built…


Pixel 3, Pixel Slate, Xperia XZ3, Huawei Mate 20, and more (MobileTechRoundup show #448)

After returning from my 25th US Coast Guard Academy reunion trip to the northeast, there was plenty for Kevin and I to discuss on MobileTechRoundup show #448. Some new phones are in hand and Kevin attended the Google launch event in NYC. …read more Source:: ZDNet


Experimental Android App Determines Alertness By Examining Eyes

An experimental new Android app developed by a team at Cornell University is designed to determine a person’s alertness by examining their eyes. The app, called AlertnessScanner, utilizes a smartphone’s front-facing camera to gauge the size of users’ pupils. “When we’re in an alert state, our sympathetic nervous system causes our pupils to dilate so…


Windows 10 Will Banish Spectre Slowdowns With Google’s Retpoline Patch

Microsoft is including Google’s mitigation for the Spectre Variant 2 speculative execution side-channel attack in the next release of Windows 10, currently codenamed 19H1. ZDNet reports: Google developed a software-based mitigation for Spectre Variant 2 called Retpoline that constrains speculative execution behavior sufficiently to mitigate an attack. Google’s testing found its fix had a negligible…


Marvel’s Daredevil season 3 big bad talks about donning the iconic white suit – CNET

Actors Vincent D’Onofrio, Jay Ali and Wilson Bethel reveal the dangers of becoming Wilson Fisk’s puppets in the Netflix show. …read more Source:: CNet


How the Finnish Survive Without Small Talk

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Finnish people often forgo the conversational niceties that are hard-baked into other cultures, and typically don’t see the need to meet foreign colleagues, tourists and friends in the middle. As Tiina Latvala, a former English instructor in Sodankyla, Lapland, explained, part of her job was to…


Turning The Deep Note Into A Game

One of the most famous pieces of computer-generated music is the Deep Note, the audio trademark for THX. It begins with a dozen or so voices, randomly tuned between 200 and 400 Hz, then glissandos to a frequency spread of three octaves. Put that through a few thousand watts of a speaker system, play it…


Game of Thrones shot a reunion special with Conan O’Brien – CNET

Sean Bean says the comedian hosted a farewell show of some kind in Northern Ireland. …read more Source:: CNet