‘Safer’ thorium reactor trials could salvage nuclear power But, if it’s so safe and reliable why hasn’t thorium been used all along? Because (unlike uranium) it’s much harder to weaponize. As a result, it’s historically been sidelined by nations in search of both energy and a potential source of weapons-grade plutonium. The downside is that thorium …
Tanker’s speedy Arctic crossing is bad news for the planet As the BBC points out, Arctic sea ice levels have declined over the past 30 years — and Sovcomflot doesn’t expect the ice to thicken to a significant degree over the useful lifespan of the Christophe de Margerie and its eventual 14 companion ships. Environmental groups …
Smart code helps your phone browse the web twice as quickly Typically, your phone’s web browser has to process nearly 100 web links before you see an entire page. It has to make multiple requests and spend a lot of time idling. Vroom, however, bundles the info that a browser needs to load a page. When …
Demand for Mayweather-McGregor fight crashed pay-per-view servers The pay-per-view issues at a minimum are known to have affected TV providers like Comcast, Atlantic Broadband and Frontier, although it’s not clear how large the scope of the failures was at this stage. Problems like this aren’t completely unprecedented — Mayweather’s fight against Manny Pacquiao created hiccups of …
Apple Watch will soon support a huge variety of workouts Apple already mentioned that watchOS 4 will do more to accommodate fitness fans, but it’s now clear that there’s more coming for the exercise crowd… a lot more. Thanks to some sleuthing in the latest iOS 11 beta’s code, iHelp BR has found assets hinting that …
The best cold-brew coffee maker Why cold brew Cold brewing makes better iced coffee than refrigerating hot-brewed coffee. When you add hot-brewed coffee to ice, it slowly dilutes, resulting in a weaker-tasting beverage. Cold brew, which generally starts from a concentrate, is meant to be watered down, so adding ice, milk/cream, and not too much water …
Uber’s key CEO candidate backs out at the last minute Supposedly, Uber is worried not just about criticism of Immelt’s time at GE (his performance there was mixed), but also former CEO Travis Kalanick’s eagerness to have Immelt take his old position. The investors at Benchmark are worried that Immelt might be too eager to please …
After Math: Short and Sweet It’s been a long week for small events. Engadget editors spent it getting to know new AI assistants, Disney taught a computer to judge short stories and Amazon announced that your Whole Foods bill will soon be shrinking as well. Numbers, because how else will we know how little we’ve got? …
Ben Heck’s N64 Portable mod After many comments, requests, questions, setbacks and badgering from our impassioned fans, the Nintendo 64 Portable is finally finished. Ben took the device to the Midwest Gaming Classic for help with the hardware. Thanks to our community of followers, the problematic RAM add-on was soldered flat and is now in place. …
States still don’t know if Russians hacked their voting systems The Department of Homeland Security isn’t denying that officials have held off on notifying states, but it says this stems out of an abundance of caution. It wants to protect the “integrity of investigations and the confidentiality of system owners” when it shares this info, according …