Consumers would struggle to make it one day without their smartphones
In case you needed added confirmation of how addicted we are to our smartphones, almost one in two U.S. consumers say they wouldn't last one day without their smartphones, according to a report from Bank of America.
Furthermore, using a smartphone is more important than coffee or television, changing "the way we live our daily lives," according to Marc Warshawsky, Bank of American SVP and mobile solutions executive. Not surprisingly, millennials from the ages of 18-24 believe their mobile phones are more important (96 percent) than their toothbrush (93 percent) or deodorant (90 percent).
Banks want to utilize smartphones and mobile technologies to keep users engaged, and it's been working for Bank of America - with 31 percent of mobile BoA users logging in at least once per day, and 82 percent access their accounts at least once per week.
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Google bids adieu to 10 year old early social network, Orkut
So long then, Orkut - Google's first social network, now ten years old, is officially closing its doors at the end of this September.
Orkut began life in the earlier days of web 2.0, at the time competing with the likes of Myspace. It was incredibly popular in South America, and enjoyed millions of users in its heyday. Now, in a blog post, the social network is saying "tchau". Orkut "helped shape life online before people really knew what social networking was," the post read. "Over the past decade, YouTube, Blogger and Google+ have taken off, with communities springing up in every corner of the world. Because the growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut's growth, we've decided to bid Orkut farewell."
Google plans to keep investing its time in the newer, mentioned networks. But to any users still lurking around, there will be an archive of all public communities - available at the date of Orkut's death late September. Those that don't want their details to be kept online can remove Orkut permanently through their Google+ accounts - where else?
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Danish, US donors to the rescue as UK faces sperm shortage
The United Kingdom is having to import sperm stocks from abroad due to a serious shortage of donors in Britain, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority has warned.
According to a report from the group, imports make up almost a quarter of donated samples in Britain. It's thought that native donations dropped considerably thanks to the dropping of a clause that would have offered total anonymity to donors in 2005. Back in '05, imports made up just one in ten samples in Britain.
The majority of these are from the United States and Denmark, with the latter country being home to the biggest sperm bank in the world. You can check out the official British government records here, should you want to for any reason.
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Scientists create supercooling system to keep organs fresh for days
One of the big challenges when it comes to performing organ transplants is to keep the organ fresh during the trip from the donor to the recipient. If the two live in different part of the country or world, keeping those organs fresh and viable can be difficult. Scientists have devised a new supercooling method that has the potential to keep the organs fresh for days.
Currently organs can only remain fresh and viable for less than 24 hours during transportation. Scientists have developed a new supercooling process that in lab tests has shown to be able to keep a rat liver fresh and viable for three days.
The supercooling technique reportedly connects the organ to a machine that perfuses it with nutrients and cools it so minus 6C. The breakthrough could eventually lead to the ability to share donated organs around the world.
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GM issues recall on 475,000 more vehicles including 2014-15 trucks
GM has been in some very hot water in the last several months with massive numbers of recalls on some of its most popular vehicles. One of the bestselling vehicles in the US is the Chevrolet Silverado truck and GM has now announced a massive recall on the vehicle.
GM has issued a recall on 475,000 2014 to 2015 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks. The reason for the recall on the trucks is a fault in the control module software that controls the four-wheel drive system on 4x4 vehicles. The fault in the software could cause the four-wheel drive system to switch into neutral automatically.
The result is that the trucks could simply roll away if the driver hasn't set the parking brake. Many drivers of vehicles with automatic transmissions don't use the parking brake. GM also announced recalls having to do with Caprice police cars and Chevrolet SS sedans due to an issue with windshield wipers.
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Rare parrot that inspired animated film 'Rio' dies in Brazil
According to a post on National Geographic, a rare blue Spix Macaw named Presley, who's story allegedly served as the inspiration for the 2011 animated film 'Rio' has died at the age of 40.
Presley was smuggled out of Brazil in the early 1970's, later finding a home in Denver, Colorado. In 2002, it's owner sought a local pet shop for assistance, with a skeptical staff astonished to prove the validity of the callers story. He was in bad shape, but efforts to recuperate him were successful, leading him to being returned to his native Brazil. With under 100 Spix Macaw's alive today, it was hoped that Presley could widen the genetic pool for the rare and endangered species, but sadly he died before this could be accomplished.
'Rio' and 'Rio 2' director Carlos Saldanha, who grew up in Rio de Janerio told BirdChannel in 2011 "I wanted the rarest bird, the blue macaw. I knew about the Lear's macaws, and how they've been having conservation successes in the wild. The same with the hyacinth macaws. But the Spix's macaw truly is the rarest".
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Chinese Tesla Model S customer wrecks brand new vehicle in protest
Delays in getting the Tesla Model S into the Chinese market lead to one disgruntled customer smashing in the front of his brand new car with a wrench.
Yu Xinquan in China wrecked his new vehicle as a "protest against the company," he said. "Tesla's arrogance made me angry." A video of Mr Yu began going viral on Friday, and is just the latest of his protests against the company. Earlier he led other customers to protest against delayed deliveries on 21 April, a day before Tesla planned its first China delivery.
At the time, Tesla's Elon Musk apologized and said he'd ensure the cars would start being manufactured. But Yu, himself an e-commerce entrepreneur, claimed the company still hadn't delivered on its promises, and he claims he was misled about availability when he first ordered the vehicle. "I feel like I just married a woman who has been married before," Yu said, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported the response on social media has been mixed.
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Scientists plan on breeding bald, heat-resistant chickens
The inevitability of intensifying global warming isn't just a problem for humans - it's a problem for the world's livestock too. Now, to make chickens a little less susceptible to the heat, one team of scientists has started research to breed poultry that are born bald.
Carl Schmidt, a geneticist at the University of Delaware, is embarking on a mission to Uganda and Brazil, where chickens have naturally shed their feathers over the years, according to Gizmodo UK. Schmidt's worried about feeding the world by 2050, adding that it'll be made even worse "if the climate does continue to change."
"We're going to be seeing heat waves that are both hotter and longer," Schmidt said in an interview with Modern Farmer. "We need to learn how to mitigate the effect of climate change on animals - we need to figure out how to help them adapt to it." For now, Schmidt plans a programme of selective breeding rather than alterations to their core genetics. But as well as breeding a whole new race of heat-resistant super-chickens, Schmidt and the team are also investigating other elements of selective pressure. "We're isolating the genetic variants that have allowed them to survive," Schmidt said.
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UK privacy chief warns wearables must comply with data law
Britain's privacy regulator has warned that wearable tech must comply with existing privacy laws, in the wake of a Google Glass soft launch in the UK.
Andrew Paterson, senior officer at the Information Commissioner's Office, said in a blog post that there's a danger wearable tech could intrude on the privacy rights of everyday citizens. He asserted that there's a debate to be had surrounding how comfortable the public feels with pervasive wearable devices that are always connected and capable of filming at any time.
"If you are using a wearable technology for your own use then you are unlikely to be breaching the [UK Data Protection] Act," Paterson wrote. "This is because the Act includes an exemption for the collection of personal information for domestic purposes. But if you were to one day decide that you'd like to start using this information for other purposes, for example to support a local campaign, then this exemption would no longer apply."
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Scientists say after spending $10 billion: the universe doesn't exist
Just minutes after the Big Bang, scientists theorize that the universe blinked itself out of existence - that's the current, new theory, anyway. After spending $10 billion, decades of research and tests, and the world's largest particle accelerator, scientists theorize the universe itself doesn't exist, or that it shouldn't exist.
One of the researchers said thanks to finding the Higgs Boson particle, it shows that the universe may have blinked out of existence moments after the Big Bang itself. This researcher continued: "This is an unacceptable prediction of the theory ... if this had happened, we wouldn't be around to discuss it!"
Australian astrophysicist Dr Alan Duffy says: "I love this idea of bringing together two discoveries found at the biggest extremes of size you can imagine. From studying the Higgs Boson at tiny scales much smaller than an atom to (potentially) measuring Inflation by searching into the distant past of our enormous universe".
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