Slashdot Mirror

Apple is exploring the idea of having two SIM card slots in its iPhones. The Cupertino-based company has registered a patent for a dual-SIM card technology that involves two separate antennas. Though not as popular in the US, and UK markets, smartphones with dual-SIM card capability are extremely popular in developing regions such as China and India. For instance, according to Counterpoint Research marketing firm, more than 90 percent smartphones sold in India, world's fastest growing smartphone market had dual-SIM card slot in them. But why does Apple care about India and China, you ask. The iPhones sales growth has dropped everywhere in the world, except India, which is also the world's second most populous nation, and world's second largest smartphone market. As per Apple's previous earnings call, sales of iPhones grew by 50 percent in India, and Tim Cook has said that he sees a huge potential in the country.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis are working on creating half-human, half-animal hybrid embryos dubbed chimeras to better understand diseases and its progression. But not everybody is thrilled about it. IBTimes reports: One of the aims of the experiment using chimeras is to create farm animals with human organs. The body parts could then be harvested and transplanted into very sick people. However, a number of bioethicists and scientists frown on the creation of interspecies embryos which they believe crosses the line. New York Medical College Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy Stuart Newman calls the use of chimeras as entering unsettling ground which damages "our sense of humanity." They are not alone in voicing their opinion against the idea. Huffington Post adds: The project is so controversial that the National Institutes of Health has refused to fund it. The researchers are relying on private donors. Critics of these experiments say they are too risky because there is no way of knowing where the human stem cells will go. Will they just become a pancreas? Or could they become a brain? And if they become a brain, will the pigs who house them have human consciousness?

An anonymous reader writes with a story at IB Times that speculates instant messaging apps which enable encrypted communications (including Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and iMessage) could be banned in the UK under the so-called Snooper's Charter now under consideration. The extent of the powers that the government would claim under the legislation is not yet clear, but as the linked article says, it "would allow security services like the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, and MI5, or Military Intelligence Section 5, to access instant messages sent between people to and from the country," and evidently "would give the government right to ban instant messaging apps that use end-to-end encryption." That might sound outlandish, but reflects a popular and politically safe sentiment: "'In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read? My answer to that question is: "No, we must not,"' [Prime Minister] Cameron said earlier this year following the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris."

Arvisp writes with this snippet about HP's recently completed datacenter in northeast England, which utilizes the glacial wind blowing off the North Sea to lower temperatures of IT equipment and plant rooms: "The Wynyard takes in the cool air, filters it accordingly and collects it in the management system and is then forced over the front of the server racks before it is exhausted. The result is a hall with a constant temperature of 24C. When the winds become even colder than usual, the exhausted heat is mixed with the outside air to maintain temperatures."