The price of oil sunk to its lowest level since October following an unexpected rise in U.S. commercial crude inventories.
From Engadget: China conducts its first crewed spaceship docking, gives southeast Asia its place in space
Believe it or not, the only countries to have docked a human-helmed spacecraft in the first 50 years of spaceflight were Russia and the US. That small community just got bigger, as China’s Shenzhou-9 has successfully docked with the Tiangong-1 module put in orbit for just such a test. The link-up is being used for experiments in the short term, but it’s a key step in a program that will ultimately lead to a full-fledged Chinese space station. On top the wider ambitions, the docking also marks a victory for gender-neutral space travel: Liu Yang, one of three crew members, is the country’s first female spacefarer. China’s space program has a long road ahead, but it’s clear the International Space Station won’t be alone for much longer.
from Engadget
From Kotaku: Chinese Doctors Tells Parents With Young Children to Say No to the iPad.
From Engadget: An ARM core in an AMD device? It just happened, but not the way you think
Yes, you heard right. AMD just added to ARM’s burgeoning heap of gold coins, having licensed the British company’s Cortex-A5 design for use in its own hardware. While this might sound like a dramatic capitulation on the part of the struggling giant, particularly after yesterday’s news, it probably isn’t. AMD says it’ll use the ARM component solely for adding better security features to its next generation of business-focused laptops and tablets. A spokesperson told us the company’s “commitment to x86 hasn’t changed,” referring to the fact that it’ll continue to use its regular in-house chip architecture for the primary task of running applications.
The Cortex-A5 will be one tiny core squeezed in amongst everything else on the future 28nm silicon. It’ll be dedicated to running ARM’s proprietary TrustZone technology, which protects sensitive apps from tampering — stuff like mobile payments, DRM, and nudge, nudge corporate documents. Rather than invent its own system for doing the same thing, AMD reckoned it’d be easier to work with ARM’s, and who can blame it? If we remember rightly, even Intel made a similar call five years ago.
[Tentacles via Shutterstock]
from Engadget
From New Scientist – Online News: First crew to head for China’s heavenly space palace
China’s space lab is set to be a ghost town no more – a major achievement for the superpower that came late to the space race
From Morning Edition: ‘Car Talk’ Brothers To Close Up Shop
Sniff… I’m gonna miss my all-time favorite radio show…Â 🙁
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Tom and Ray Magliozzi, aka Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers, the comedian mechanics who host NPR’s Car Talk, are retiring this fall. Their weekly call-in series will continue to be distributed by NPR, drawing on material from their 25 years of show archives.
from Morning Edition
