World’s Loudest Animal is a tiny insect, says study

tiny-water-boatman

Loud things can come in small packages.

While normally a species measuring in at only around 2 millimeters in length might be easily overlooked, one tiny freshwater-dwelling critter has found a way to turn peoples’ heads. Researchers studying ‘water boatman’ (Micronecta scholtzi), an aquatic insect native to Europe, say that the minuscule species takes the mantle as the world’s loudest animal relative to its body size. The hard-to-see insect is capable of producing a song that reaches a whopping 99.2 decibles — roughly the equivalent to the sound of a motorcycle. What may be more surprising, however, is just how water boatman make their ‘song’.

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Ultra-fast phase-change memory coming to a computer near you

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A new memory system could change the whole computer market.

The age of flash memory might be nearing a close even before those sexy SSDs really hit the mainstream market, as IBM has just announced that they’ve figured out a way to make phase-change memory a commercial reality within five years. What’s in it for you? Well, how does accessing your data about a hundred times faster sound?

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Driverless Car Law passed in Nevada

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Future Vegas partygoers may find themselves cruising the strip in driverless rides.

Are you sick of your long commute to work and wish you could take a nap or read the web while on the road? Soon you may be able to obtain a license for a car that can drive itself. While such a vehicle may be a few years off, the state of Nevada is getting legislation in place that will allow for the implementation of hands free driving…

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Wave of lay-offs hitting banks and thousands more job losses to come

hsbc

About 700 job reductions at HSBC will mainly affect UK branch offices.

The wave of lay-offs hitting banks gathered pace on Thursday.  Thousands more job losses are set to hit retail businesses and market divisions while lenders fight off a limp economic recovery, trading woes and tougher regulation.

 

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‘Legal Intercept’ – Microsoft seeks wiretapping technology patent for Skype

wiretapping

Microsoft rationalized the patent as a way to answer to government requests for surveillance and wiretapping.

Microsoft is seeking a patent for technology that lets it eavesdrop on VoIP calls, weeks after Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion. 

 

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2010 census trends: Uneven aging and ‘younging’ in the U.S.

 population change

 The divide between states gaining and losing their younger populations.

When the Beatles song “When I’m Sixty-Four” was released in 1967, many baby boomers adhered to the mantra, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Now the boomers are fully ensconced in advanced middle age, and the oldest of them are beginning to cross into full-fl edged senior-hood, as the first boomer turned age 65 last January. Some 80 million strong and more than one quarter of the U.S. population, baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965) are a still a force to be reckoned with, even as they have all crossed the age-45 marker. Along with their elders, the large and growing older American population presents significant future challenges for federal government programs such as Social Security and Medicare. State and local social services and infrastructure needs will also change in communities across the nation as the population ages.

 

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Google adds speech recognition to its search engine

google-voice-recognition

Speech recognition searches may take time for web users to get used to.

Asking a computer out loud for information is seen as a futurist idea right out of science fiction.  But Google is trying to change that.  They are adding speech recognition to its search engine which will release technology that will allow any browser, website, or app to use the feature.

 

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Social media draws more viewers to live tv

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Live-tweeting supports live tv viewing.

Social media is bringing dramatic changes to nearly every aspect of the TV business. Viewers are using Facebook and Twitter to comment about shows before, during and after they air. Television networks, grappling with the fragmentation of their audience, are experimenting with mobile apps, Twitter promotions and branded social networks in an effort to bring viewers back together. And a variety of other stakeholders are getting in on the social action as well.

 

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Google activates 500,000 Android devices every day

androids

 Android had become the most popular operating system among smartphone users in the United States.

The vice president for engineering at Google, Andy Rubin, said in a Twitter message Tuesday that the company was now activating over 500,000 Android devices each day.  Andy leads the company’s Google Android platform.

 

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IDC study predicts world’s data will grow by 50 times by 2020

digital-economy

Unstructured information – such as files, email and video – will account for 90% of all data created over the next decade.

1.8 zettabytes (or 1.8 trillion gigabytes) of data will be created in 2011 alone. That is the equivalent to every U.S. citizen writing 3 tweets per minute for 26,976 years. And the number of servers managing the world’s data stores will grow by ten times over the next 10 years.

 

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