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HughPickens.com writes:

James B. Stewart writes in the NYT that for the past 16 years Walmart has often acted as though it hoped Amazon would just go away. When Walmart announced last week that it was significantly increasing its investment in e-commerce, it tacitly acknowledged that it had fallen far behind Amazon in the race for online customers. Now, the magnitude of the task it faces has grown exponentially as e-commerce growth continues to surge globally. "Walmart.com has been severely mismanaged," says Burt P. Flickinger III. "Walmart would go a few years and invest strategically and significantly in e-commerce, then other years it wouldn't. Meanwhile, Amazon is making moves in e-commerce that's put Walmart so far behind that it might not be able to catch up for 10 more years, if ever."

In 1999, Amazon was a fledgling company with annual revenue of $1.6 billion; Walmart's was about $138 billion. By last year, Amazon's revenue was about 54 times what it was in 1999, nearly $89 billion, almost all of it from online sales. Walmart's was about three times what it was 15 years before, almost $486 billion, and only a small fraction of that — 2.5 percent, or $12.2 billion — came from Walmart.com. Walmart's superefficient distribution system — a function of its enormous volume and geographic reach — was long the secret to Walmart's immense profitability. Ravi Jariwala, a Walmart spokesman, says that Walmart is building vast new fulfillment centers and is rapidly enhancing its delivery capabilities to take advantage of its extensive store network to provide convenient in-store pickup and adds that 70 percent of the American population lives within five miles of a Walmart store. "This is where e-commerce is headed," says Jariwala, which is to a hybrid online/in-store model. "Customers want the accessibility and immediacy of a physical store," along with the benefits of online shopping.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich and at the MPI of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden have now drawn a detailed map of human protein interactions. Using a novel mass spectrometric quantification method, the researchers determined the strength of each interaction. "Our data revealed that most interactions are weak, but critical for the structure of the entire network," explains Marco Hein, first author of the study. The paper has now been published in the journal Cell.

Proteins are the building blocks and central protagonists of the cell and contribute to all processes of life at the molecular level. They carry out their tasks by binding to each other and building interaction networks. With the help of quantitative mass spectrometry, scientists can determine precisely which proteins interact with each other. The technology can be described as molecular fishing: One protein is selected as bait. Fishing it out of a complex mixture retrieves all its interaction partners as well, which are then identified by a mass spectrometer. Scientists from Martinsried and Dresden have now analyzed 1,100 such bait proteins in a large-scale project. They mapped a network of over 5,400 proteins, which are connected by 28,000 interactions.

The different interactions have very distinct properties. Some connections are strong and serve a structural role, others are weak and transient, for instance in signal transduction pathways. Measuring the strength of an interaction is very laborious and hence complicated in high throughput studies. Using a novel strategy, the German scientists established a method of estimating the strength of each interaction indirectly. They measure the copy numbers of all proteins in the cell, and quantify the ratio at which each interactor is retrieved along with its corresponding bait protein. The stronger an interaction, the more of an interactor is recovered.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Think of PC as standing for an innovative pocket computer not personal computer. This is a made-in-Finland computing rethink called Solu, now up on Kickstarter seeking funds.

It's a tiny box, made out of wood, that serves as a pocket computer which you can use independently but it can also be connected up to a screen at the office, becoming your full blown desktop computer. Softpedia's Marius Nestor said they are using a Linux kernel based operating system, the SoluOS.

North America technology reporter for the BBC, Dave Lee, reported on this attempt from Helsinki-based Solu Machines to reinvent the PC.

Computing power is packed into the small touchscreen device. "It can be hooked up to a bigger display at which point the handheld device is used as a controller. Various gestures - swiping, tapping, pinching - are used to control what happens on the bigger screen," said Lee.

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"gewg_" writes:

I remember a story on the other site years ago when, following the Mojave Experiment, some guys did their own Folgers Test, asking people what they thought of this new (unidentified) UI and most of those folks thought it (KDE) was just more of Redmond's stuff.

Now, there's this story from OpenSource.com.

- Linux is so easy, anyone can install it--even by accident

One day, [...] a user's Windows install went corrupt on her laptop and she accidentally installed Linux. When her laptop couldn't [load the OS] from the hard drive, it automatically booted [to] the network. When she got the PXE install menu, she just hit Enter, installing a Linux desktop with all of our default network security settings and applications.

She then logged into it with her network account and emailed me to say that her Windows had updated and she wanted to know why her Microsoft Office looked so different now and "Where did Outlook go?" We had a good laugh over how Linux is so easy you can install and configure it by accident now, even on a laptop.

Hat tip to Robert Pogson for spotting this. The comment by IT pro oiaohm is, as always, insightful (once you adjust for his dyslexia).

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darkfeline writes:

Internet service providers who accept government funding in exchange for providing Internet access in rural areas were "reminded" this week that they're not allowed to use the money for food, alcohol, entertainment, personal travel, and other expenses unrelated to providing Internet access.

The Federal Communications Commission issued a public notice with a "non-exhaustive list of expenditures" that cannot be reimbursed. The list includes all of the above as well as political contributions, charitable donations, scholarships, payment of penalties and fines, club membership fees, sponsorships of conferences and community events, gifts to employees, and personal expenses of employees and family members "including but not limited to personal expenses for housing, such as rent or mortgages."

The ban on using subsidies for food includes but is "not limited to meals to celebrate personal events, such as weddings, births, or retirements," the FCC said.

This money comes from the Universal Service Fund (USF), which is paid for by Americans through fees imposed on phone bills.

Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael O'Rielly wrote that while "the vast number of providers" would not take advantage of the system, "there are unfortunate examples to the contrary and spending on outrageous items has occurred."

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Karthika Qpt writes in with an article from RtoZ.org:

Cornell University researchers have developed a new lightweight and stretchable material with the consistency of memory foam that has potential for use in prosthetic body parts, artificial organs and soft robotics. The foam is unique because it can be formed and has connected pores that allow fluids to be pumped through it.

The polymer foam starts as a liquid that can be poured into a mold to create shapes, and because of the pathways for fluids, when air or liquid is pumped through it, the material moves and can change its length by 300 percent. Also read here.

...

"We are currently pretty far along for making a prosthetic hand this way," said Rob Shepherd, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and senior author of a paper appearing online and in an upcoming issue of the journal Advanced Materials. Benjamin Mac Murray, a graduate student in Shepherd's lab, is the paper's first author.

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"gewg_" writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

Solar power could soon be flourishing [in] the Sunshine State. [On October 22,] the Florida Supreme Court approved [PDF] an initiative for the 2016 ballot that would allow Floridians to vote to reduce the state's restrictions on rooftop solar power.

Although solar is growing exponentially nationwide, it has not thrived in Florida. Florida is one of a handful of states that prohibit residents from purchasing electricity from a source other than an electric utility. This has locked out third-party solar rooftop companies, such as SolarCity and SunRun, which install rooftop solar panels on a customer's property at no cost and sell solar-generated power to that customer at a reduced electric rate.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, a coalition of solar advocates called Floridians for Solar Choice has been leading the effort to change this policy by pursuing a ballot initiative to permit third-party financing for rooftop solar by private companies. To get the initiative on the ballot, Florida required the coalition to first collect 68,314 voter signatures and then have the initiative language approved by the state Supreme Court.

On [October 22], the ballot initiative cleared this major hurdle when the Florida Supreme Court approved the "Solar Choice Amendment" for the November 2016 ballot. Advocates now have to collect the requisite 683,149 signatures to ensure the initiative goes on the ballot. It will then have to pass with 60 percent of the vote in 2016.

[...] In 2008, the Florida [Public Service Commission--the state body responsible for regulating electricity--]released a report saying that rooftop solar alone had the potential to generate nearly 100 times [the current 530 MW derived from renewables in Florida]. [PDF]

Meanwhile, "public servant" Pam Bondi, Florida's Attorney General, continues to fight on multiple fronts to block renewables.

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Phoenix666 writes:

A sword is probably the last thing you'd expect to find on a hike -- especially one that's more than a millennium old.

But that's what happened to a man in Norway who recently stumbled across a 1,200-year-old Viking sword while walking an ancient route.

The find, which dates from approximately 750 A.D. and is in exceptionally good condition, was announced by Hordaland County Council.

County Conservator Per Morten Ekerhovd described the discovery as "quite extraordinary."

What will future hikers think of our civilization when they stumble across our CueCats lying, discarded, under rocks?

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"gewg_" writes:

Live Science reports:

Hurricane Patricia is currently churning in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and weather forecasters are calling it the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Communities in southern Mexico, where the hurricane is expected to make landfall later today (Oct. 23), are already preparing for a "potentially catastrophic" storm.

[...] Hurricane Patricia is a Category 5 storm--the highest on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale that is used to gauge a storm's intensity--and is expected to have winds of nearly 200 miles per hour (325 km/h) with even higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

[...] Category 5 storms typically have winds of at least 157 mph (252 km/h), but Patricia is special; earlier today, the NHC said Hurricane Patricia is the strongest hurricane on record in the area the center monitors, which includes the Atlantic. (Before Patricia, the strongest hurricane measured in the Western Hemisphere was Wilma in 2005, with top wind speeds of 175 mph, or 282 km/h.)

In the coverage by NPR (formerly National Public Radio), meteorologist Ryan Maue, PhD notes:

as a Category 5 storm, Patricia is at the top of the Saffir-Simpson scale. If the categories went higher (as some have suggested in recent years), it would actually be labeled Category 7.

takyon: National Hurricane Center

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AnonTechie writes:

Australian farmers managing cattle stations as large as some European nations will soon be able to monitor their cows and pastures from space as part of "groundbreaking" technology, scientists say. The technology, developed with government and private funding, taps into a satellite passing overhead to record the weights of herds daily while monitoring pasture conditions—a task traditionally impossible due to the stations' vast sizes and harsh, remote locations. Some stations, such as Newcastle Waters in the Northern Territory, span 10,000 square kilometres (3,861 square miles)—an area larger than Cyprus—and home to 55,000 cattle.

The technology exploits the stations' semi-arid conditions, which means there is little access to surface water with cattle having to walk to man-made watering points each day. A weighing platform that the cows—which each have an electronic tag—must step on is placed at the watering points and powered by solar panels, with the data fed to a satellite and then to a station manager's computer.

http://phys.org/news/2015-10-australian-technology-cows-weights-space.html

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Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists have built a battery containing a magnetic fluid that can be moved in any direction by applying a magnetic field. The magnetically controlled battery concept could be especially useful for flow batteries, where it could eliminate the need for the pumps that are typically required for moving the electrolyte from an external storage tank to the inside of a power stack to provide electricity. Flow batteries are being actively researched as large-scale energy storage devices for power grids, where they could store energy captured by intermittent alternative energy sources such as wind and solar.

The researchers, led by Yi Cui, Professor at Stanford University, have published a paper on the new magnetically controlled battery in a recent issue of Nano Letters.

"The greatest significance of our work lies in the innovative idea of using a magnetic field to control and enhance the mass and electron transport in a battery system," lead author Weiyang Li, previously at Stanford University and now at Dartmouth College, told Phys.org.

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"gewg_" writes:

TechDirt reports

  Larry Lessig Dumps His Promise To Resign The Presidency In An Attempt To Get People To Take His Campaign Seriously

We've written a few times about Larry Lessig's somewhat wacky campaign for President, which was premised on the idea that it was a "referendum" campaign, where his entire focus would be to push Congress into putting in place serious campaign finance reform and then resigning from the Presidency. As we noted, the whole thing was a bit of a gimmick. And apparently that gimmick hasn't been working too well.

Earlier this month, Lessig noted that he was being shut out from the Democratic debates, despite being a Democrat running for President and polling roughly on par with a few of the other nobodies in the campaign. The problem is that the Democratic National Committee apparently chose to ignore the campaign and because it refused to officially "welcome" him to the campaign, pollsters aren't including him and thus he didn't have enough polling data to be invited to the debate.

[...] Late on Friday (not exactly the best time to announce anything but bad news...) Lessig announced that he's dropping the promise to resign, because while it may have gotten some attention as an initial gimmick, it was also dragging him down (including potentially keeping him out of the debates).

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takyon writes:

In July we reported the creation of "double-muscled" pigs using a mutation in the myostatin gene (MSTN). Now CRISPR/Cas9 has been used to do the same in dogs:

Scientists in China say they are the first to use gene editing to produce customized dogs. They created a beagle with double the amount of muscle mass by deleting a gene called myostatin.

The dogs have "more muscles and are expected to have stronger running ability, which is good for hunting, police (military) applications," Liangxue Lai, a researcher with the Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, said in an e-mail.

Lai and 28 colleagues reported their results last week in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology, saying they intend to create dogs with other DNA mutations, including ones that mimic human diseases such as Parkinson's and muscular dystrophy. "The goal of the research is to explore an approach to the generation of new disease dog models for biomedical research," says Lai. "Dogs are very close to humans in terms of metabolic, physiological, and anatomical characteristics."

Lai said his group had no plans breed to breed the extra-muscular beagles as pets. Other teams, however, could move quickly to commercialize gene-altered dogs, potentially editing their DNA to change their size, enhance their intelligence, or correct genetic illnesses. A different Chinese Institute, BGI, said in September it had begun selling miniature pigs, created via gene editing, for $1,600 each as novelty pets.

Generation of gene-target dogs using CRISPR/Cas9 system [paywalled]

Go from wimp to pimp with this one weird gene edit [photo from the article]. Expect your local police force to begin handling mutated extra-muscular canines soon.

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HughPickens.com writes:

After 30 years in use, the US Army's official handgun, the Beretta M9 pistol, is being retired and AP reports that firearms manufacturers are competing for a rare chance to sell the US. Army a new handgun that would replace the current Cold War-era model. Critics say the M9 is too bulky for small-handed shooters, troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan complain it's not as hard-hitting as they would like, and it can't easily accommodate the accessories now common in the civilian firearms market, such as swappable gun-sights or gun-mounted lights. "It's a little one size-fits-most" says Rodney Briggs.. "It's been around for a really, really long time, and it's just old and outdated."

The US Army has a lengthy list of requirements. Among them, it wants a handgun with an adjustable grip that can easily fit large or small hands. That way, shooters don't have to adjust their grip mid-fight to operate hard-to-reach buttons or levers. The gun should accommodate sights that make it easier to shoot in low light. It should have a rail on which soldiers can easily attach additional equipment, like infrared pointers. The military also wants a gun that can be equipped with a suppressor, which muffles the sound of gunshots. Beretta intends to enter a new pistol called the APX into the competition. The new gun is a major engineering departure from the M9. It has a polymer frame like more recent handguns and can meet the Army's other requirements.

Beretta has publicly complained that the government never formally requested efforts to improve its M9, which the company said is a standard procedure for upgrading platforms. "If you look at the history... for a variety of weapons, you'll find all along we'll have used spiral development, product improvement. Where was the requirement they notify prime contractor with an opportunity to fix the problem?" says Howard Yellen, a military adviser for Beretta.

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darkfeline writes:

As a followup to the previous story on Soylentnews about the hacking of CIA Director John Brennans' AOL account, the head of the CIA's personal info has now reached WikiLeaks.

CNN tells us:

Though all of the documents predate Brennan's time in the Obama administration and reveal no classified data, information such as Social Security numbers, passport numbers and addresses of his family and associates is causing great concern within the agency.

Among the documents released online is Brennan's incomplete SF86, a questionnaire federal employees must fill out in order to gain security clearance. Along with personally identifiable information, this document includes personal information about his health, criminal history, questions about whether he's used drugs and associations with foreign governments.

In other words, he is now experiencing up close and personal what the rest of the US's (and the world's) citizens have been experiencing first hand.

https://wikileaks.org/cia-emails/

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Phoenix666 writes:

On a sunny morning in October 2014, Christopher Schmidt strolled onto the grassy fields of Magazine Beach, a public park along the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. To get a better view of the fall scenery, he launched his drone, a DJI Phantom quadcopter equipped with a camera.

Then he saw it: a juvenile red-tailed hawk circling nearby. Within seconds, it swooped down — wings outstretched, tail flared, talons open — and flipped the drone midair. Mr. Schmidt cut the propellers, and the bird flew off, apparently uninjured. The drone dropped to the ground, undamaged except for a slight bend in its plastic landing gear.

Mr. Schmidt, a 31-year-old software developer, posted a drone's eye video of the encounter on YouTube. It has been viewed about five million times. And it is hardly the only evidence of conflict between animals and so-called unmanned aerial vehicles.

In other videos, ospreys, magpies, sea gulls and geese pursue and attack drones in flight. With a hop and punch, a kangaroo knocks one to the ground. A cheetah chases, leaps and swipes at one. A pugnacious ram head-butts a drone that hovers too low. And a particularly defiant chimpanzee at a zoo in the Netherlands whacks a buzzing intruder out of the sky with a branch.

Drones do seem to trigger a primal reaction, and not just in humans. Why?

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