Link Collection

Google is launching a startup that will focus on defeating the aging process and associated diseases.  Calico's CEO will be the former Chairman and CEO of Genentech who also used to be the Chairman of Apple.  Trials will start with Google employees...considering the huge quality of life and life extension techniques they will be trying, this could be a huge retention incentive...
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/google-is-launching-calico-antiaging.html


Aubrey de Grey, one of the biogerontologists that has been working on the war against aging for the past 20 years, welcomes Google (and its money!) to the war against aging:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/aubrey-de-grey-welcomes-google-to-war.html


HIV/AIDS vaccine candidate appears to have the ability to completely clear an AIDS-causing virus from the body:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/aids-vaccine-candidate-appears-to.html


Tesla is planning to produce a car that can run on "auto-pilot" within the next 3 years.  The car will be able to handle 90% of the driving, but a fully autonomous car will take longer to develop:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/tesla-plans-90-hands-free-self-driving.html


Google is adding offline video features to its YouTube mobile app.  YouTube will reportedly allow users to save clips to their smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices for up to 48 hours, so they will be available for viewing without an internet connection:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/youtube-adding-offline-viewing-option-mobile-apps/2013-09-18


AT&T is looking to sell its cell phone towers for $5 bil, then leasing its use from whoever buys the towers:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-17/at-t-said-to-seek-sale-of-wireless-towers-valued-at-5-billion.html


Zimbabwe man discovered in the morning that he slept all night with a massive 8-foot-long (330 pound) crocodile hiding under his bed.  The man even sat at the edge of the bed in the morning with his legs just centimeters away from the crocodile...the crocodile wasn't discovered until he was eating breakfast and the housemaid started screaming when she was cleaning his room:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/zimbabwe-40yearold-man-finds-8feet-crocodile-hiding-under-his-bed/422871-2.html

One clear indication of how Yahoo has turned around over the past year is how they get 12,000 resumes per week for people who want to work there, 5x more than they got when Marissa Mayer took over last July.  Their employee attrition is down significantly and 10% of the hires they have made this year are "boomernags", people who left Yahoo and now decided to come back:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130911222857-13780238-yahoo-now-has-800m-active-users-as-turnaround-takes-hold


For the first time since 2009, Apple has not bragged about how many smartphones it presold in the first 24 hours of availability.  For example, in 2012 Apple quickly announced how they received 2 million pre-orders for the iPhone 5...but this year Apple hasn't said anything.  China Unicom (the 2nd biggest wireless operator in China) had more than 300,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 5, but their total pre-orders for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c is only at the 100,000 level:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/apple-stays-mum-iphone-5c-pre-order-figures-ahead-launch/2013-09-17


Article about how to upgrade your smartphone while keeping unlimited data for Verizon customers...I'm trying this over the weekend:
http://www.droid-life.com/2013/09/17/keep-unlimited-data-verizon-upgrade/


My wife sent me this cute link of photos of 13 of the ugliest animals on Earth:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/13-of-the-ugliest-animals-on-the-planet/elephant-seal

Bill Gates said that Google providing internet access in Africa won't save the lives of kids, but it turns out that cellphones are important to accurately track and model the spread and occurrence of diseases.  If existing models are improved just 1% via cell phone data, that would prevent the deaths of 69,000 children under age 5 every year:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/bill-gates-was-wrong-cellphones-can-be.html


NASA and its international partners have to decide by next year if they will crash the space station into the South Pacific in 2020 or pay $24 bil to keep it going 8 more years (crashing it into the ocean in 2028).  This article makes the case that an inflatable space station should be built instead of paying the $24 bil to extend the life of the current space station:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/international-space-station-extension.html


Interest in buying BlackBerry seems limited and the bidders are reportedly only interested in buying parts of the company instead of the whole company:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/13/us-blackberry-private-idUSBRE98C12420130913


Massive molasses spill (233,000 gallons!) off Sand Island in Honolulu has apparently killed *everything* living in the ocean there...not a single living thing is underwater, thousands of fish, crabs, eels, etc. are all dead and covering the bottom of the ocean:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/12/221709158/massive-molasses-spill-devastates-honolulu-marine-life

Sorry for not having time for an LOTD yesterday--2nd week in a row that I had to go to DC and I missed LOTDs on both days I traveled East. My flight is delayed now so I have time to see what I can find.

Michael Dell won approval to buy out Dell computers for $24.9 bil and take it private:
http://mashable.com/2013/09/12/michael-dell-private/

Sprint confirmed that the new iPhones (5S and 5C) do *not* support LTE on the 2.5GHz spectrum that Sprint is using for their nationwide LTE network. Apple is supporting the LTE bands that China Mobile is using (2.6GHz, 1.9GHz, and 2.3GHz), but Sprint's 2.5GHz spectrum did not make the cut:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-cfo-apples-iphone-5s-and-5c-do-not-support-lte-25-ghz-spectrum/2013-09-11

Some companies are turning smartphones into taser-like weapons, pepper-spray devices, and even into guns! The Yellow Jacket smartphone case delivers *650,000 volts*, disabling its target and giving him/her aching, twitching muscles for days afterwards. Spraytect is a smartphone case that serves as a pepper spray-like dispenser. Both cases are available for all popular smartphone types including the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. People are also importing cases from China that turn smartphones into stun guns:
http://telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=50409&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10

AT&T deleted a tweet on September 11 after receiving an avalanche of criticism from people accusing them of exploiting a national tragedy:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/11/technology/social/att-9-11-tweet/index.html

You can play Plants Vs. Zombies on an Android phone today if you wish to download the Chinese version...I'll wait until it hits Google Play:
http://www.droid-life.com/2013/09/12/plants-vs-zombies-2-now-available-for-android-but-its-the-chinese-version/

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20130910-u-s-pays-growing-attention-to-insider-threats

NASA is sending a spacecraft to the Moon tonight, the first time ever they are sending a vehicle to the moon from Virginia in the 54 years we have had lunar missions.  The rocket should be visible along much of the East Coast tonight:
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/09/nasa-aiming-moon-again-time-va


Scientists confirmed the largest single volcano found on Earth--it is as big as the British Isles or the state of New Mexico.  Tamu Massif is among the largest in the Solar System and is located about 1,000 miles east of Japan.  Tamu Massif covers 120,000 square miles--Hawaii's Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano on Earth and is just 2,000 square miles (2% the size of Tamu Massif):
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/09/scientists-confirm-existence-largest-single-volcano-earth


The human body has thousands of species of microbes and a study found that the mixture of bacteria has a significant effect on weight gain.  Gut bacteria from obese people into mice made the mice gain weight, while gut bacteria from lean people kept the mice slim.  Scientists are looking for the right mix of bacteria that leads to weight loss, and what foods promote the growth of that bacteria:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/the-right-mix-of-bacteria-in-our-gut.html


Studies have consistently shown how getting a college degrees pays off economically--college graduates make over $500k more on average than non-college graduates in their lifetime.  Taking into account tuition, a college degree brings an annual return of 15% per year--the stock market gets 6.8%, the housing market gets 0.4%.

However, only 42% of people who enter college don't get their degree, so did they waste their money?  It turns out that college dropouts make $8,000/year more than high school graduates, or $100k more in their lifetime. Taking into account the average 1.83 years of tuition they paid, college dropouts get a better return on their money than the stock or bond market--but less than college graduates get.  A separate study found that 2 years in community college without getting a degree causes an increase in annual income of abut 10-16%.  I never realized how college dropouts were that much better off than high school graduates that didn't go to college:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/10/going-to-college-is-worth-it-even-if-you-drop-out/


China's manufacturing advantage for solar panels is NOT due to cheaper labor.  It turns out to be because of economies of scale--Chinese PV factories are 4x bigger than US factories, which leads to cheaper costs:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/chinas-cost-advantage-in-solar-power-is.html


21% of married households in the US in 2011 had at least one foreign-born spouse.  California, Nevada, Hawaii, and DC has at least 12% of their married households with one American-born spouse and another foreign-born person.  Hawaii had the highest percentage (16%) of American-born and foreign-born households while Mississippi, South Dakota and West Virginia had the lowest percentages (2%):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/one-in-five-married-households-has-foreign-born-spouse/2013/09/05/dc082e22-1698-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics


Sony confirmed that the PS4 will include both voice recognition (including voice commands) and facial recognition, just like the new Xbox will have:
http://www.geek.com/games/ps4-camera-will-offer-voice-control-facial-recognition-1569271/