ISS astronauts mimic nature to turn urine into drinking water

ISS astronauts mimic nature to turn urine into drinking water - Recycling water is key for astronauts on the International Space Station since sending water to the crew is heavy and expensive. The current systems work well and the tech is being used here on Earth in places where clean drinking water is in short...

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Seagate Backup Plus 8TB Review

Seagate Backup Plus 8TB Review -

This is the first 8TB hard disk drive we’ve reviewed at Mac|Life and the biggest external (single-drive) hard disk currently on the market. It uses a new technology called SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) which allows the cramming of more bits on a given surface by using a similar technique to how roofers lay tiles. Drives that use SMR have one flaw — they do not perform well when it comes to sustained, random writes. They do, however, excel when it comes to sustained read speeds and burst write speeds, so they’re ideal for backup.

(Via Mac|Life all.)

Pointers: Six tools for writing books

Pointers: Six tools for writing books - When you've done something once, you can fly through it the second time. Unless that second time is ages later, in which case you spend all your waking hours re-learning something you'd already sweated through. So entirely for you and not at all, not in the teeniest way for us the next time we write a book, here's what you need. It's what we recommend after a summer of working on this, followed up by one or two cases where your mileage may vary and anyway the alternatives are fun. Plus a few quick notes of lessons we learned, mistakes, and evidence -- actual evidence -- that all this works ...

(Via MacNN | The Macintosh News Network.)

Wait, How Do I Find Cortana?

Wait, How Do I Find Cortana? -

Cortana is one of the shiniest new features in Windows 10, and here's how to find her.

The post Wait, How Do I Find Cortana? appeared first on WIRED.

(Via Wired Top Stories.)

Amazon's Fling is its version of AirPlay and Google Cast

Amazon's Fling is its version of AirPlay and Google Cast - If you've been hoping for an AirPlay or Cast-like tool to beam content to your Amazon streaming gadgets, you'll soon be in luck. The company revealed its Fling feature this week, a tool that will allow developers to include a way to control media fro...

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Kindle Paperwhite review (2015): our favorite e-reader gets even better

Kindle Paperwhite review (2015): our favorite e-reader gets even better - When Amazon's Kindle Voyage launched last year, I more or less fell in love with it right out of the gate. Sure, a handful of competitors came out with similar displays before Amazon did, but man -- with that high-resolution screen and its sleek new ...

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Call Them Hippies, But the Grateful Dead Were Tech Pioneers

Call Them Hippies, But the Grateful Dead Were Tech Pioneers -

Long stereotyped as hippies stuck in the Summer of Love, the Dead stood at the vanguard of the digital revolution for 50 years.

The post Call Them Hippies, But the Grateful Dead Were Tech Pioneers appeared first on WIRED.