feed on feeds - 2014/06/18 - items 0 to 15

En tornado har förstört upp till 100 hus i Kanadensiska provinsen Ontario, meddelar myndigheter efter att ha inspekterat förstörelsen.

Scientists have discovered that a number of spider species catch and eat fish.

Ett nytt system för ventilation, värme och luftkonditionering håller på att sättas in i det Sixtinska kapellet i Vatikanstaten, för att skydda Michelangelos mästerverk, skriver the Guardian.

BillCable writes: Politico reports, "In a major blow to the Washington Redskins, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday canceled six federal trademarks of the 'Washington Redskins' team name because it was found to be 'disparaging' to Native Americans. 'We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be canceled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,' the PTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board wrote. The panel voted 2-1 in favor of the decision." Perhaps this move will speed up the inevitable name change, which was expected within the next few years."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In The Hit List Diary #2, Mike Abdullah presents a way for multiple view controllers to share toolbar items, so that the shared items stay constant — instead of fading in and out — on transitions.

Moves like Azure:

In contrast CloudKit is not actually a sync mechanism. Instead it’s a transfer mechanism, where your app must explicitly initiate all data transfers.…

This all means that using CloudKit in an app will more closely resemble third party cloud solutions like Azure or Parse.

As a result, using CloudKit will likely mean more code in your app than using iCloud with Core Data. On the other hand, CloudKit’s more direct and less magical approach to dealing with cloud-based data should be more reliable.

Moves like Azure:

In contrast CloudKit is not actually a sync mechanism. Instead it’s a transfer mechanism, where your app must explicitly initiate all data transfers.…

This all means that using CloudKit in an app will more closely resemble third party cloud solutions like Azure or Parse.

As a result, using CloudKit will likely mean more code in your app than using iCloud with Core Data. On the other hand, CloudKit’s more direct and less magical approach to dealing with cloud-based data should be more reliable.

Apple has introduced a new, cheaper iMac, but are its tradeoffs worth the lower price?

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Steve Delaire is making a 3-D printer that uses steel instead of plastic. Specifically, he's using TIG welding to build up layers of steel, just as most 3-D printers build up layers of plastic. He says he's "still working it out," but eventually hopes to use 3-D welding to make larger than life art pieces that are strong enough to be placed safely in public areas such as parks, where children are likely to climb on them. Steve's blog is called Molten3D, and it's a diary of his work, including the problems he encounters and how he overcomes them. He's not the only one doing metal 3-D printing; a Texas company has even made a printed metal gun. So there's plenty of people working in the field of what we really should call "additive manufacturing" instead of "3-D printing." But whatever you call it, every year we see this kind of process being used to make stronger and more complicated shapes, using an ever-increased variety of materials in ways that have been developed since this seminal paper, Liquid Metal Jetting for Printing Metal Parts, was written in 1997. (Alternate Video Link)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Steve Delaire is making a 3-D printer that uses steel instead of plastic. Specifically, he's using TIG welding to build up layers of steel, just as most 3-D printers build up layers of plastic. He says he's "still working it out," but eventually hopes to use 3-D welding to make larger than life art pieces that are strong enough to be placed safely in public areas such as parks, where children are likely to climb on them. Steve's blog is called Molten3D, and it's a diary of his work, including the problems he encounters and how he overcomes them. He's not the only one doing metal 3-D printing; a Texas company has even made a printed metal gun. So there's plenty of people working in the field of what we really should call "additive manufacturing" instead of "3-D printing." But whatever you call it, every year we see this kind of process being used to make stronger and more complicated shapes, using an ever-increased variety of materials in ways that have been developed since this seminal paper, Liquid Metal Jetting for Printing Metal Parts, was written in 1997. (Alternate Video Link)