Miscellaneous

Telefonica refutes report of AT&T takeover bid

Telefonica is throwing cold water on a report that AT&T made an offer to acquire it.

In a statement released Monday, the Spanish telecommunications giant said that "in relation to press rumors published today, Telefonica states that it has not received any approach, nor any indication of interest, neither verbal nor in written form, from any party."

Telefonica was responding to a story published Monday by Spanish newspaper El Mundo saying that AT&T had initiated a tender offer to acquire the company to the tune of 70,000 million euros ($93 billion) and take … Read more

AT&T adds wireless emergency alerts update to iPhones

AT&T announced that it is rolling out wireless emergency alerts to all of its U.S. customers that have an iPhone 5 or 4S.

This means that anytime there is a government-issued safety announcement, like when there's natural or man-made disaster, a presidential alert, or an Amber alert for a missing child, a message will pop up on users iPhones explaining what's happening.

Such alerts are critical for getting information out to people who aren't immediately tuned into a television or radio, and would have been helpful during disasters such as the floods from Hurricane … Read more

Amazon builds section for 3D printing supplies

In another step toward 3D printers finding a place in everyday businesses and homes, online retailer Amazon has dedicated a section of its site to selling 3D printers.

The site sells 3D printers from well-known manufacturers such as Makerbot, as well as others such as Cubify and fabbster, alongside 3D printer filament and spare parts.

Prices for machines range from the $1,099 JET/Open Source 3D printer Replicator G to $2,479 MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D printer.

The section marks another move toward mainstream adoption for 3D printing and follows office-supply chain Staples' decision to begin stocking 3D printers.… Read more

L.A. schools give iPads, cars for perfect attendance

Our children constantly need to be rewarded.

Poor things, they're growing up in a world in which they don't know what will happen tomorrow and whether the things they want to do in life will suddenly be automated by a couple of fluff-chinned hipsters sitting in a hotel foyer.

It makes them wonder whether going to school is worth it all. Instead, go to work, get your Series A funding by the time you're 19 and hope that you can take it easy by the time you're 25.

One L.A. schools district is conscious of … Read more

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Navy stops 'shouting,' ditches all-caps requirement

Until just recently, the Navy had a lot in common with your obnoxious uncle who just now discovered the Internet and has been celebrating ever since by posting Facebook updates in all capital letters. Naval messages have been sent in all caps since the 1850s, but a fresh directive has abolished the practice.

Early teletype machines that didn't have the ability to generate lowercase letters are to blame for the long-standing requirement of all-caps communications. The problem is that modern readers interpret the capitalized letters as shouting, a practice that is frowned on as rude.… Read more

Banker sleeps on keyboard, mistakenly transfers $293M

They work them hard in German banks.

They make the eat, breathe, and sleep their jobs. Especially that last one.

At least that's the impression that must be gleaned from the tale of a German bank employee who fell asleep on his computer keyboard.

Oh, we've all done it. We've all woken up hours later to read that we just wrote: "CHHCHCHCHCHCCHCHCHCHCCCO."

And yet this bank employee seems to have fallen asleep during a transfer of funds.

As Agence France-Presse tells it, a court in Hessen heard that he was supposed to send 62.40 … Read more

Monitor your world with $39 Motes sensors

You're sitting in the living room. You're wondering if the Mother-in-Law's Tongue growing in a pot in the back room needs to be watered. You could get up and stick your finger in the dirt, or you could check your smartphone and see what the plant's personal sensor says.

The Motes Indiegogo project offers several different flavors of remote sensors that work with iOS devices (Android and Surface coming soon). Each sensor costs $39. That price point and the variety of sensors available has attracted plenty of interest. The Motes project has already doubled its $22,000 goal with 35 days of fundraising left.… Read more

The Week in Pictures: Hacked humans and modded cars

From comics without pictures to bioengineered veins, it was again a week during which we saw some very futuristic technologies come to life.

A design student in Germany created a graphic novel for the sight-impaired that tells a simple story through touch. "Life" is a simple tale told using only circles of varying textures to describe a single life cycle.

The first-ever bioengineered vein was recently implanted into the arm of a 62-year-old Virginia man with kidney disease. Cultivated from donated human cells on tubular framing to form a vessel-like shape, the replacement part performed better in preclinical … Read more