Nine major banks are working together to experiment with using the technology behind cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The idea is more about making financial transaction records more efficient and reliable than creating or using a new currency. The project, which follows consultations of more than a year, is exploring the blockchain technology which underpins cryptocurrencies. […]
The .onion domain used for sites accessed via Tor has been officially recognized as a top level domain. Rather counter-intuitively, the move is designed to give .onion sites special treatment for added protection. Until now, the presence of .onion in a website address wasn’t officially recognized as a traditional domain and instead was designed solely […]
Could you survive 28 days on the run with the state using its resources to track you down? That’s what 14 contestant are doing (in closely simulated form) on a British TV show that’s like a non-lethal Running Man. While it’s questionable how pure a documentary Hunted is, it certainly provokes thought about the tactics […]
Elon Musk is either trying to save the world or destroy it. Stephen’s not sure which one. [The Late Show with Stephen Colbert]
(Check out parts one and two of this report if you haven’t yet seen them.) Following the main museum we visited the Mansion, home during the war to the top brass and, before Bletchley Park’s expansion, the codebreakers. Most of this area was simply rooms filled with props to resemble their state during the war, though […]
Following our visit to the National Museum of Computing (see Part 1), we returned the next day for Bletchley Park proper. It’s a deceptively huge visitor facility which begins with two brief exhibition galleries designed as an introduction to the context of the second world war and the general codebreaking process. Useful as these were, […]
Taking advantage of the freedom of our (tiny) motorhome, my wife and I decided our last long weekend away this year should be to a geeky facility I’ve written about several times here at GaS but never visited until now: Bletchley Park. For those who don’t know, this is a British country mansion whose grounds […]
Amazon Prime members will now be able to download movies to watch offline through iOS and Android apps as part of their subscription. Previously the feature was only available on Amazon’s own Fire devices. It’s an attractive weapon in the battles with other streaming video services, though does come with several strings. The feature appears […]
A French woman has been awarded a publicly-funded disability grant because she is allergic to radiowaves from mobile devices. However, the ruling stopped short of formally recognizing electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) as an illness. The lady says she is forced to live in a remote barn with no electricity because she suffers adverse effects when exposed […]
A toucan that lost part its upper beak — and thus the ability to eat — has been given a replacement via a 3D printer. Tieta was rescued by police from a fair in Rio De Janeiro and had around half of the upper beak missing. Rescuers think that may have been the result of […]