Signals from GPS satellites now help you to call your mother, power your home, and even land your plane – but a cheap plastic box can jam it all
IT WAS just after midday in San Diego, California, when the disruption started. In the tower at the airport, air-traffic controllers peered at their monitors only to find that their system for tracking incoming planes was malfunctioning. At the Naval Medical Center, emergency pagers used for summoning doctors stopped working. Chaos threatened in the busy harbour, too, after the traffic-management system used for guiding boats failed. On the streets, people reaching for their cellphones found they had no signal and bank customers trying to withdraw cash from local ATMs were refused. Problems persisted for another 2 hours.
As kids, our time in front of the TV is limited to increments as decided by our parents. As adults, we’ve taken a few liberties on those previously-determined TV allowances, and technology hasn’t made it any easier to stay away. Now that television is accessible on almost every device we own, it’s virtually impossible to avoid TV-generated brain rot.
What does it take for Johan Fourie to visit his mom? Winning the lottery, apparently:
When Johan Fourie’s mom asked him on Sunday when he was going to come visit her, his answer was as funny as it was seemingly unrealistic.
“When I win the lottery,” Fourie said.
Moments later, Fourie checked his Florida Lotto ticket and saw that he had actually won the $4 million jackpot.
“I had no idea I would be calling her back later that day to tell her I was on my way!” he said Wednesday.
Some dude hid in his attic and used Facebook to contact friends during a home invasion / armed robbery to call for help. As dumb as that sounds….it worked.
“I don’t think [Facebook] is really meant as a lifesaving tool, but it’s the only way I could think of contacting someone immediately to call for help,” he said. So, as the intruders rifled through the home, Bhakta updated his Facebook status: “HELP, ROBBERS, NO PHONE.” In all caps, naturally.
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Paging Dr. Xbox, paging Dr. Xbox, please report to surgery with your Kinect.
Surgeons at a Toronto hospital are using Microsoft’s Xbox 360 motion sensor Kinect to save time calling up images during operations. The Winnipeg Free Press reports that surgeons at Sunnybrook Hospital are using open-source Kinect drivers for PC to allow them to manipulate images of medical scans – something which normally involves a meticulous cleanup operation to ensure sterility around the patient, taking around 20 minutes each time.
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