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Stephens Weekly Tech/Science News Roundup

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As usual, here is a bit of a roundup of this weeks Tech and Science news.  I decided not to do what most news agencies have done, and shove the Apple iPhone 6 down your throats ^_^



SanDisk SD memory card 'largest ever'

Memory specialist SanDisk has created an SD card with 512 gigabytes (GB) of storage space - the highest capacity ever released.

The card, which is the size of a postage stamp, will go on sale for $800 (£490).

The launch comes a decade after the firm released a 512-megabyte (MB) SD card with one-thousandth of the space.

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk.../technology-29175093

Facebook experiments with vanishing posts

Facebook is following in the footsteps of messaging app Snapchat by testing a feature that allows users to schedule the automatic deletion of their posts.

The social network said the option, which offers expiration settings ranging from one hour to seven days, was "a small pilot" for its iOS app.

Facebook often tests new capabilities.

It faced criticism in June for one experiment that "manipulated" the content of nearly 700,000 users' news feeds, to gauge emotional responses.

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk.../technology-29156436

Google buys firm behind spoon for Parkinson's patients

Google has bought a biotech company that has developed a spoon designed to make life easier for people with diseases such as Parkinson's.

It is part of its ambitious foray into health technology, spurred in part by the personal interest of co-founder Sergey Brin.

Last year, Google became the main investor in Calico, a firm dedicated to developing medicines to extend life.

Latest acquisition Lift Labs will join Google's research division Google X.

The spoon developed by Lift Labs is equipped with sensors that detect tremors and cancels them out by as much as 70%, according to the firm.

The technology it uses is similar to image stabilisation features in cameras that compensate for shaky hands when taking a photo.

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk.../technology-29155888

In this Chinese city, phone addicts get their own sidewalk lane

Some places have lanes for bicycles, others for motorcycles, but there's a place in mainland China that boasts a different type of lane altogether: one for phone addicts glued to their screens. According to a Chinese publication, the cellphone lane above was spotted along a place called Foreigner Street in Chongqing city, one of the five major cities in the country. The sidewalk was most likely painted on for everyone's safety, because, hey, if there's distracted driving, there's also distracted walking, as perfectly demonstrated by the woman in this video. If the idea sounds familiar, it's because the National Geographic did something similar back in July as an experiment. The society stenciled "NO CELLPHONES" on one-half of a DC sidewalk and "CELLPHONES: WALK IN THIS LANE AT YOUR OWN RISK" on the other half. The result? Well, among other things, they found that the people actually glued to their phones didn't even notice the markings at all. Typical.

Read more at: http://www.engadget....ane-china/#continued

The Big Picture: NASA gets ready to build the 'next great rocket'

See the gargantuan structure above that dwarfs that line of puny humans at the bottom (bet you didn't even notice them at first glance, huh)? It's a welding tool -- the biggest one built for spacecraft, in fact, that's slated to help Boeing build the core stage of NASA's Space Launch System at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The structure's officially called the Vertical Assembly Center, and it stands 170 feet tall with a width that measures 78 feet: not exactly surprising, considering the SLS is a 200-foot-tall behemoth. It's but one of the many tools Boeing intends to use to build the core stage of NASA's "most powerful rocket ever" after the two organizations finalized their $2.8 billion deal in July. The core stage will house cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen used to power the rocket's four engines, and building it brings the SLS much closer to the launch pad for deep space exploration.

Read more at: http://www.engadget....t-welding/#continued

eBay DROPS DEAD AGAIN - tat bazaar says sorry, scrambles to resurrect site

eBay went titsup earlier today, and the company is now attempting to bring its site back to life.

The online tat bazaar coughed to an unexplained technical blunder preventing an unknown number of its subscribers from accessing the site, which many buyers and sellers of used goods enjoy using in their spare time on the weekends.

eBay posted this miserable statement on its service page about 90 minutes ago:

We are aware that some users may experience problems when using the eBay Site. We are actively working on restoring the issue and apologize for any inconvenience caused.

But plenty of folk were still complaining that they were unable to access the site, at time of writing.

Click here to read the full edition now..



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