By manishs from
Slashdot's the-grand-tour-fans department:
Jasper Jackson and Dugald Baird, writing for The Guardian: Amazon's new motoring show starring Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May will be called The Grand Tour. In a statement, the former Top Gear trio thanked fans for taking the time to send in their suggestions for the name, which they said were "much appreciated". "Thing is," said Clarkson, "we'll be travelling the world hosting each episode in a different country, from a giant tent. It's a sort of 'grand tour', if you like. So we've decided to call it The Grand Tour." May said he was underwhelmed by the name. "I wanted to call it 'Nigel', or 'Roger'," he said. "We needed a name, and they're names." Hammond was more positive. "I already love camping," he said. "But this is something else. We are like our pioneering and prospecting forebears, sallying forth into a new frontier of broadcasting, and making our home where."
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's DIY department:
HughPickens.com writes: More than one million Americans live with Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition in which the pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone needed to turn sugar into energy. Now Kate Linebaugh writes at the WSJ that Jason Calabrese, a software engineer, followed instructions that had been shared online to hack an old insulin pump so it could automatically dose the hormone in response to his son's blood-sugar levels. The Calabreses aren't alone. More than 50 people have soldered, tinkered and written software to make such devices for themselves or their children. Initially, Calabrese worried about the safety of the do-it-yourself project. He built it over two months, and spent weeks testing. At first, he only tried it out on his son on weekends and at night. Once it performed well enough, he said it felt irresponsible not to use it on his 9-year-old son. "Diabetes is dangerous anyway. Insulin is dangerous. I think what we are doing is actually improving that and lowering the risk," says Calabrese. The home-built project that the Calabreses followed is known as OpenAPS. The only restriction of the project is users have to put the system together on their own. As long as the people tinkering with their insulin pumps aren't selling or distributing them, the FDA doesn't have a legal means to stop it. The system involves an outdated insulin pump that communicates with a small radio stick connected to a continuous glucose monitor, a computer motherboard and a battery pack. It is an outgrowth of another open-source project where caregivers developed software to remotely monitor blood-sugar levels. The size of the homemade system varies, and the one that Calabrese carries has come down from the size of a small shoebox to that of a headphone case. He wears his insulin pump and glucose monitor on his belt. "It is clearly for people who have some expertise in computer programming," says Bruce Buckingham. "What it shows is that people are anxious to get something going."
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's twiddle-one's-thumbs department:
An anonymous reader writes: Hacker, BVM, said he's "lost count" of the number of subreddits he's stolen and defaced, but estimates that the number is more than 70. Subreddits like r/pics, r/starwars, and r/gameofthrones, and many others, have been defaced just in the last few days. He claims Reddit's crummy security, and lack of two-factor authentication are what has made his exploits possible. "Reddit's security is shit," he says. "If Reddit would simply add 2FA it would be a lot harder to get in." Why is BVM hacking these subreddits? "No reason really. Just boredom. It's not like it's really a challenge or anything so I just do it to pass time," the hacker told Motherboard in an online chat. BVM didn't comment on how exactly he is taking over subreddits. However, he did admit he's been hacking into moderators' accounts and then changing the CSS style of the pages, replacing it with a note taking responsibility. Reddit appears to be responding to these incidents quickly, restoring the subreddits.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's good-deals department:
Quartz reports Germany produced so much renewable energy on Sunday, May 8, that commercial customers were being paid to consume electricity: "Thanks to a sunny and windy day, at one point around 1pm the country's solar, wind, hydro and biomass plants were supplying about 55 GW of the 63 GW being consumed, or 87%. Power prices actually went negative for several hours, meaning commercial customers were being paid to consume electricity." Many critics have argued that renewable energy will always have only a niche role in supplying power to consumers, given its daily peaks and troughs. With that said, Germany plans to hit 100% renewable energy by 2050. Denmark, for example, has already generated more electricity than the country consumes from its wind turbines. It now exports the surplus energy to Germany, Norway and Sweden.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's make-the-most-of-what-you-have department:
Master Moose quotes a report from NZ Herald: Deep within a dense Central American forest sit the ruins of an ancient city the world forgot. And it has just been discovered by a precocious 15-year-old boy. Quebec teenager William Gadoury claims he has discovered a long-lost ancient Mayan city using a clever combination of old-world astronomy and ultra-modern technology. [The inquisitive youngster, who has a deep fascination with ancient Maya, analyzed 22 Mayan constellations and realized that the Mayans aligned their 117 cities with the positions of the stars. Using satellite images from the Canadian Space Agency and Google Earth maps, William zeroed in on the precise location -- and a pyramid and about thirty ancient buildings were spotted, partially hidden, in the dense forest.] UPDATE: As the story continues to spread, so does the skepticism. David Stuart, anthropologist from The Mesoamerica Center-University of Texas at Austin, said via his Facebook page: "This current news story of an ancient Maya city being discovered is false..." Thomas Garrison, an anthropologist at USC Dornsife, told Gizmodo that the objects are relic corn fields.
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By manishs from
Slashdot's like-in-the-movies department:
Remember MegaBots? The Kickstarter success story that was raising money last year to pilot fighting robot named Mk II. Labeling it as a contest for world supremacy, the co-founders challenged a Japanese team Suidobashi Industries to a duel with its Kuratas bot. (Which it accepted very gracefully). The idea was to utilize this octane-packed event to sell merchandise products. Here's an update: it worked. TechCrunch reports: Oakland, Calif. startup MegaBots Inc. has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to bring the robot-fighting stuff of manga and anime to a venue near you. According to MegaBots cofounders, Gui Cavalcanti, Matt Oehrlein, and Brinkley Warren, the startup aspires to follow in the footsteps of major sports associations like Formula 1 or UFC. With the seed funding, Warren said, MegaBots will be partnering with a law firm called Latham Watkins to help set up and roll out its league internationally, taking an approach similar to the Olympics. Specifically, MegaBots will be working with Latham Watkins Partner Christopher D. Brearton, who represents the International Olympic Committee, and has helped organized leagues and governing bodies in sports including the NBA, MLB, NFL and others.
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By manishs from
Slashdot's Android-app-goes-rogue department:
An anonymous reader writes: ES File Explorer (Google Play link) is one of the handiest file manager apps in the post-Android Gingerbread era, and it continues to ride up on its popularity (Editor's note: Google Play listing suggests the app has been downloaded between 100,000,000 and 500,000,000 times) and functionality. Recent changes to ES File Explorer, however, are signalling its decline. The newest update might just be the last straw that breaks the camels back, as ES File Explorer now bundles in adware. This adware comes in the form of DU Battery Booster, which adds in a lockscreen on your phone and brings ads directly to your lockscreen, irrespective of your choice. There was no intimation, no choice, no changelog to mention the same; all features which are characteristic of such deceptive "Booster" apps.Plenty of users have taken it to the Google Play listing of the aforementioned app to express their grievances. "This software is getting some major bloat with a lot of features that has very little to do with file browsing in general, so going to look elsewhere for a simple file explorer without all the 'extras'," a user wrote.
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