rePost::There's a functional $1 million mech robot for sale on Amazon | The Verge

Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Brad Stone billed Amazon as “The Everything Store” in his 2013 book about the company. Now, here’s irrefutable proof: if you have ¥120,000,000 (about $1,020,000) handy, you can currently buy a rideable mech robot through Amazon Japan.
COMPLETELY NORMAL AND UNASSUMING
The robot is Kuratas, a passion project of Japanese blacksmith Kogoro Kurata that has been in development for several years. It’s 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) tall, weighs 5 tons, and should be able to scare the snot out of entire towns with aplomb. (Kurata bills the machine as a “toy,” but that seems like a liberal use of the term.) Its terrifying BB Gatling gun can rattle off 6,000 rounds per minute, set to trigger when the pilot smiles.
via There’s a functional $1 million mech robot for sale on Amazon | The Verge.

Man Saves Wife’s Sight by 3D Printing Her Tumor | MAKE

Balzer downloaded a free software program called InVesalius, developed by a research center in Brazil to convert MRI and CT scan data to 3D images. He used it to create a 3D volume rendering from Scott’s DICOM images, which allowed him to look at the tumor from any angle. Then he uploaded the files to Sketchfab and shared them with neurosurgeons around the country in the hope of finding one who was willing to try a new type of procedure. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he found the doctor he was looking for at UPMC, where Scott had her thyroid removed. A neurosurgeon there agreed to consider a minimally invasive operation in which he would access the tumor through Scott’s left eyelid and remove it using a micro drill. Balzer had adapted the volume renderings for 3D printing and produced a few full-size models of the front section of Scott’s skull on his MakerBot. To help the surgeon vet his micro drilling idea and plan the procedure, Balzer packed up one of the models and shipped it off to Pittsburgh.
via Man Saves Wife’s Sight by 3D Printing Her Tumor | MAKE.

Nix Nolledo: 'Xurpas is just the beginning'

Nice!!! Hoping this is the first of many!

To our friends, family, our underwriter, our investors, our partners, the PSE board and management, the SEC, and everyone who helped us through this journey. Good morning.Today is a day for thanksgiving, and a day for celebration. Today, we mark this occasion with humility and joy, knowing that we started with a dream of creating a mobile tomorrow. Today, Xurpas officially enters the Philippine Stock Exchange as “X”, on the backs of our hopes, hard work, and an initial investment of P62,500.I still remember the first Xurpas office, it was my father’s tiny apartment. We brought our computers from home and had no money to spend on new office furniture. We ate canned goods and rice to save our money. Raymond, Andy, and I poured all of our savings into this venture, armed with our skills and our aspirations of building a better future.The future has arrived. With more than 110 million mobile subscriptions in the market, Internet access reaching 40 percent of our population, and smart phone penetration about to hit half of all mobile subscribers, the future could not have looked any brighter. We’ve waited 13 years for this moment.
via Nix Nolledo: ‘Xurpas is just the beginning’.

OpenSSH Server

OpenSSH Server
Introduction
This section of the Ubuntu Server Guide introduces a powerful collection of tools for the remote control of networked computers and transfer of data between networked computers, called OpenSSH. You will also learn about some of the configuration settings possible with the OpenSSH server application and how to change them on your Ubuntu system.
OpenSSH is a freely available version of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol family of tools for remotely controlling a computer or transferring files between computers. Traditional tools used to accomplish these functions, such as telnet or rcp, are insecure and transmit the user’s password in cleartext when used. OpenSSH provides a server daemon and client tools to facilitate secure, encrypted remote control and file transfer operations, effectively replacing the legacy tools.
The OpenSSH server component, sshd, listens continuously for client connections from any of the client tools. When a connection request occurs, sshd sets up the correct connection depending on the type of client tool connecting. For example, if the remote computer is connecting with the ssh client application, the OpenSSH server sets up a remote control session after authentication. If a remote user connects to an OpenSSH server with scp, the OpenSSH server daemon initiates a secure copy of files between the server and client after authentication. OpenSSH can use many authentication methods, including plain password, public key, and Kerberos tickets.
Installation
Installation of the OpenSSH client and server applications is simple. To install the OpenSSH client applications on your Ubuntu system, use this command at a terminal prompt:
sudo apt-get install openssh-client
To install the OpenSSH server application, and related support files, use this command at a terminal prompt:
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
The openssh-server package can also be selected to install during the Server Edition installation process.
via OpenSSH Server.

Here’s Why Public Wifi is a Public Health Hazard — Matter — Medium

In his backpack, Wouter Slotboom, 34, carries around a small black device, slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes, with an antenna on it. I meet Wouter by chance at a random cafe in the center of Amsterdam. It is a sunny day and almost all the tables are occupied. Some people talk, others are working on their laptops or playing with their smartphones.
Wouter removes his laptop from his backpack, puts the black device on the table, and hides it under a menu. A waitress passes by and we ask for two coffees and the password for the WiFi network. Meanwhile, Wouter switches on his laptop and device, launches some programs, and soon the screen starts to fill with green text lines. It gradually becomes clear that Wouter’s device is connecting to the laptops, smartphones, and tablets of cafe visitors.
On his screen, phrases like “iPhone Joris” and “Simone’s MacBook” start to appear. The device’s antenna is intercepting the signals that are being sent from the laptops, smartphones, and tablets around us.
via Here’s Why Public Wifi is a Public Health Hazard — Matter — Medium.

Amazon isn’t the problem with capitalism. It’s the solution to our economic ills.

Innovative entrepreneurship is exactly what the American economy desperately needs. You might think that the American innovation system is in great shape because large numbers of highly educated young people are flocking to Silicon Valley to create their own smartphone apps. You’d be wrong. The problem, as Thiel argues, is that although we have large numbers of copycat entrepreneurs, we have very few who are willing to take on the biggest, most difficult challenges. If Amazon weren’t a relentless competitor that threatened the very existence of dozens of hidebound retailers, consumers would endure the same high prices and mediocre service, and shareholders in the various not-Amazons of the world would be sitting pretty. Amazon is the living embodiment of what the mostly forgotten economist Joseph Berliner famously called the “invisible foot” of capitalism.
We’ve all heard of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that guides the free market. The invisible foot is the invisible hand’s brutish older brother. It is the force that sees to it that capital gets reallocated from firms that aren’t doing their jobs to firms that are by putting the former out of business. The invisible foot has seen better days. In sector after sector—banking, broadband, and utilities come to mind—large incumbent firms have found new ways to protect themselves from competition, whether through coziness with regulators of sweetheart subsidy deals with politicians on the make to a pathetic lack of imagination among entrepreneurs who refuse to take on the toughest challenges. The sectors that Amazon takes on are the big exception. Instead of damning Amazon, we need to be asking why we don’t have more companies like it.
via Amazon isn’t the problem with capitalism. It’s the solution to our economic ills..

PANALO! | Group of Pinoy coders win big in international coding tourney | Infotek News: InterAksyon.com

A great victory for local tech!!
 

Math and gamesThe veritable quartet all came from Kalibrr, a local startup that helps optimize the recruitment process of outsourcing companies through their cloud-based platform.Magno, who admitted as being the least technical person of the group, came from Ateneo de Manila University and serves as Kalibrr associate product manager.Both Atienza and Ayson are company developers, while Dumol is chief software engineer. All three are members of the University of the Philippines Programming Guild.Dumol said that he started out programming after chancing upon a book in elementary about building a website.“I was in grade six and I found a book on how to make a website. It’s very fulfilling to be able to translate your ideas and thoughts into working code and make a program basically out of nothing by typing on a computer,” Dumol said.Though Ayson came to programming at a much later stage in his life, his math skills carried him through.“I did not even know the Internet until fourth year high school. I did not know that you just double click the Firefox logo to launch the Internet,” Ayson said. “But I was discovered for my math ability. I like how programming and code solves many different problems.”Atienza, a familiar name in the programming community as a hackathon master, said that his love for gaming paved the way for programming.“Before college I did not know any programming… I thought this was entirely all about games and computer. But I actually love Math and problem solving,” Atienza said.If there is one more thing the group share aside from coding, it’s gaming. The group’s name – Liadri — was actually derived from the final boss in the online game Guild Wars.
via PANALO! | Group of Pinoy coders win big in international coding tourney | Infotek News: InterAksyon.com.

This Woman's Revolutionary Idea Made Her A Billionaire — And Could Change Medicine – Business Insider

A Billion Dollar Idea
Holmes dropped out of Stanford at 19 to found what would become Theranos after deciding that her tuition money could be better put to use by transforming healthcare.
Traditional blood testing is shockingly difficult and expensive for a tool that’s used so frequently. It also hasn’t changed since the 1960s.
It’s done in hospitals and doctor’s offices. Vials of blood have to be sent out and tested, which can take weeks using traditional methods, and is prone to human error. And of course, sticking a needle in someone’s arm scares some people enough that they avoid getting blood drawn, even when it could reveal life saving information.
Holmes recognized that process was ripe for disruption.
It took a decade for her idea to be ready for primetime, but now it seems that her decision to drop out was undoubtedly a good call. Last year, Walgreens announced that it will be installing Theranos Wellness Centers in pharmacies across the country, with locations already up and running in Phoenix and Palo Alto. And Holmes has raised $400 million in venture capital for Theranos, which is now valued at $9 billion (Holmes owns 50%).
The other two 30-year-olds that are just a little bit younger on Forbes’s List, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his former roommate, Facebook CEO Dustin Moskovitz, also have access to a wealth of information about people — but their data is less likely to save a life.
via This Woman’s Revolutionary Idea Made Her A Billionaire — And Could Change Medicine – Business Insider.