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U.S. House Appropriations chair: Obama border security request too high

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration’s $3.7 billion request for emergency funds to bolster U.S. border security and deal with a massive influx of migrant children from Central America is too high and will be reduced, an influential Republican lawmaker said on Friday.



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Chinese State Media Renews Anti-Apple Rhetoric, Calls The iPhone A “National Security Concern”

sanlitun-apple-store-china Apple has faced a fair amount of state-sponsored criticism in China, a market where the prevailing powers have a stated goal of promoting more home-grown network and IT solutions. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple’s iOS 7 poses a threat to national security because of its ‘Frequent Locations’ feature, which identifies and provides users a map of their oft-visited… Read More

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The PC Market Has Its Strongest Quarter In Recent Memory

Screen Shot 2014-07-11 at 8.54.02 AM Personal computers, long an ailing member of the larger technology market, had a strong second quarter. After consistent quarters of decline, the worldwide PC market was either up 0.1 percent, or down a modest 1.7 percent in the period, according to Gartner and IDC, respectively. In the United States, the PC market was up around 7 percent in the quarter, again according to the two firms. Read More

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CEO With A Heart Of Gold, Neil Young Takes The Reins At PonoMusic, Tech Vet John Hamm Remains Investor

ponoplayer A changing of keys and tempo, at PonoMusic, the venture founded on the premise of a high-fidelity digital music service and music-playing device. Neil Young, the iconic musician who founded Pono and saw it raise over $6.2 million on Kickstarter after aiming for only $800,000, is stepping in as its new CEO as John Hamm steps down. Hamm will remain an investor in the company, the company noted in… Read More

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MIT Researchers Build Drones That Automatically Provide Picture Perfect Lighting For Photographers

MITnews_DroneGaffer_01 The intrepid researchers at MIT never fail to impress, and a new system they’ve designed that uses fleets of drones to automatically light a shoot for photographers is no exception. The prototype of the system will be on display at the International Symposium on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization and Imaging happening in August, and uses a single lightweight UAV to… Read More

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Kids Can Now Teach Robots To Play Angry Birds – For Science!

screen_shot_2014-07-10_at_9.43.09_am In what must be the cutest example of human-robot interaction I’ve seen in recent months, researchers at Georgia Tech are helping kids teach robots how to play Angry Birds and, in the process, help the kids regain muscle movement and control. The process is fairly simple. Kids play games and a little two-legged robot watches. The robot keeps an eye on the score, recreates what the child… Read More