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A consumer group is predicting a rush for powerful vacuum cleaners as an EU ban on many best-performing products looms. Which? said that from September 1, companies will be unable to manufacture or import any vacuums with motors above 1,600 watts under rules designed to boost energy efficiency and tackle climate change.

Windows 9 has been leaked, and seems to show a backing away from the aggressively touch-focused Windows 8, with a mini start menu and dropping of the Charms bar, but we’ll get a better look September 30, according to the Verge. The blog reports Microsoft is planning an official unveiling of what’s next for its desktop OS for that date, with a technology preview available for early adopters following quickly after that. The upcoming Windows 9 release is codenamed ‘Threshold,’ and expectations are that we’ll see it arrive for the general public as a stable release sometime early next year....

German companies are ranked second in the world for industrial plagiarism, a global study released on Friday found. Just under a quarter of all plagiarized technical products examined were sold by a German company, the study by the Federation of German Machine and Equipment Builders (VDMA) has found. Germany was behind China, but ahead of Turkey and India in terms of the number of copies sold. Most German firms involved in plagiarism targeted competitors in the high-tech sector, in contrast to Chinese manufacturers, which usually copied low-quality goods. …

The roots of the propulsion system tested by the NASA team trace back to a British researcher named Roger Shawyer, who claims that his "EmDrive" generates thrust by rocketing microwaves around in a chamber. There is no need for propellant, as solar power can be used to produce the microwaves. Shawyer says that his company, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd., has successfully tested experimental versions of the thruster. But many scientists have dismissed or downplayed such claims, saying the propulsion system violates the law of conservation of momentum, Wired UK reported. In 2012, however, a team of Chinese researchers built their...

After a decade in space and 4 billion miles, Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has made history: For the first time ever, a robotic probe from Earth is flying with a comet and will soon enter orbit. The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft arrived at its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, today (Aug. 6) to end a 10-year journey across the solar system. The spacecraft performed an engine burn that brought it about 62 miles (100 kilometers) from the comet's surface. Comet 67P/C-G and Rosetta are now flying about 251 million miles (450 million kilometers) from Earth. Engineers on the ground had to program...

ARLINGTON, Va. — On a September day in 1974, Capt. Harold "Buck" Adams set the world speed record in the U.S. military's SR-71 Blackbird aircraft. At the controls of the twin-engine supersonic plane, Adams flew from London to Los Angeles in a blistering 3 hours, 47 minutes and 39 seconds. The Cold War was in full swing, and "there was a need for an airplane that could penetrate Soviet airspace with impunity," Adams, a retired brigadier general for the U.S. Air Force, told an audience July 18 here at a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) expo showcasing the Pentagon's...

U.S. law enforcement can force Microsoft Corp. to turn over emails it stores in Ireland, a judge ruled in a case that technology companies have rallied around as they pursue billions of dollars in data storage business abroad. […] The Redmond, Washington-based software company has said rulings forcing it to turn over emails threaten to rewrite the Constitution’s protections against illegal search and seizure and could damage U.S. foreign relations. Its arguments were joined by large technology companies, including Apple Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. …

~snip~ The details behind the new fuel cell The new fuel cell uses stainless steel in place of platinum and rare metals. Johanna Wellington, advanced technology leader at General Electric Global Research and the head of General Electric's fuel cell business, states: "The cost challenges associated with the technology have stumped a lot of people for a long time. But we made it work, and we made it work economically. It's a game-changer. The new fuel cell can generate electricity at any location with a supply of natural gas. It can get going quickly, does not need new transmission lines...

The magnets cluttering the face of your refrigerator may one day be used as cooling agents, according to a new theory formulated by MIT researchers. The theory describes the motion of magnons — quasi-particles in magnets that are collective rotations of magnetic moments, or “spins.” In addition to the magnetic moments, magnons also conduct heat; from their equations, the MIT researchers found that when exposed to a magnetic field gradient, magnons may be driven to move from one end of a magnet to another, carrying heat with them and producing a cooling effect. “You can pump heat from one side...

Sales of the Chevy Volt in the US have been fairly stable for the last few months (between a low of 1,478 and a high of 1,777 since March), but in Europe, the Opel Ampera (sister-vehicle of the Volt) has been trending downwards. The sales decline is prompting discussion that the vehicle will be killed off in Europe, according to Automotive News Europe. The car was a relative hit back in 2012, when it was named the European Car Of The Year and sales topped 5,200 units. Compared to 2012 numbers, which were good, Ampera sales dropped 40 percent to...

Tech pioneers in the US are advocating a new data-based approach to governance – 'algorithmic regulation'. But if technology provides the answers to society's problems, what happens to governments?... Compared with the impressive police gear of today – automatic number plate recognition, CCTV cameras, GPS trackers – Operation Corral looks quaint. And the possibilities for control will only expand. European officials have considered requiring all cars entering the European market to feature a built-in mechanism that allows the police to stop vehicles remotely. Speaking earlier this year, Jim Farley, a senior Ford executive, acknowledged that "we know everyone who breaks...

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced the first successful live-fire tests of the military’s first smart, self-guided bullets. In a video released by DARPA Thursday, Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordinance (EXACTO) .50-caliber bullets maneuvered independently mid-flight to accurately strike targets purposefully offset from where the firing sniper rifle was aimed. The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced the first successful live-fire tests of the military’s first smart, self-guided bullets. In a video released by DARPA Thursday, Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordinance (EXACTO) .50-caliber bullets maneuvered independently mid-flight to accurately strike targets purposefully offset from where the firing...

Apple has patented a method for building devices with all-glass outer casings (via AppleInsider), by fusing pieces together for a completely seamless final look. The all-glass device casings could be used to hold the internals of an iOS device or to house a TV or monitor, too. The all-glass structures are designed for maximum durability but also weight savings, with designs that fuse pieces together to avoid having to use a single heavy block of material, and internal structures like fused-on ribs and reinforcement points, also made of glass, placed at key points where structural integrity could be weaker. Unlike...

Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post. Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else.

An independent privacy and civil liberties board says the NSA’s massive collection of internet data passes constitutional muster and employs “reasonable” protections designed to ensure that private American communications are not misused. In a report released Tuesday night, the bipartisan, five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board examined a set of NSA surveillance programs disclosed by leaker Edward Snowden …

If you fancy yourself as a .guru or any other newfangled Internet address, Google wants you to try out its new domain name registration service. The search giant quietly launched Google Domains on Monday as an invite-only beta service. It’s being billed as an easy way to set up an address on the Web with simple management tools. Until now, Google has told people looking to register that it “doesn’t register or host domain names.” It referred them to partner companies including GoDaddy and eNom. Google Domains, though, has features that might make people think twice before going with other...

Based on data obtained from the Large Hadron Collider, the CMS Collaboration at CERN provided evidence for the first time that the particle assumed to be the Higgs Boson decays into fermions, a broad class of particles that includes many atoms and nuclei. "We made this big discovery back in 2012—we confirmed the particle, its [lack of] spin, everything was consistent," says Marcus Klute, a professor of physics at MIT a coauthor on the study. "What was missing were the fermions."

So it turns out there that something doesn't have to be true to be funny.Many a thinking American - who knows media bias - finds the following perversely appropriate.Young Get News From Comedy CentralTom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather ... and Jon Stewart?Readers over 30 might scoff at Stewart's inclusion - assuming they know who he is. For many under 30, the host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" is, improbably, a source for news.Looking to further ride the wave (beyond just Real Time with Bill Maher), HBO hired away Comedy Central “reporter” John Oliver to anchor a new “news” show - Last...

COLUMBIA - Electronic medical records, or EMRs, have given some physicians joy and others nightmares. The federal government mandated all health care providers in the U.S. switch to EMRs by January 1, 2014. EMRs replaced the previous medical records systems done by hand on paper. The days of the 4-inch thick patient chart are over. "We knew it was coming, we knew we had to do it." said Tom Selva, chief medical officer at University Hospital. But University Hospital was always ahead of the game. It switched to an EMR provider 15 years ago when it started using Cerner, based...

Hewlett-Packard has kicked off an ambitious project that aims at nothing less than reinventing the basic architecture of computers. It looks like servers are its initial target, but HP is also working on an Android version that it says could lead to smartphones with 100TB of storage. HP said Wednesday it was working on a new computer architecture, dubbed The Machine, based on memristors and silicon photonics. Bloomberg Businessweek reports up to 75% of HP’s once fairly illustrious R&D division — HP Labs – are working on The Machine. In the words of HP Labs, The Machine will be a...