Matt's Favorites: Tesla Stock Jumps On EV Profit, Sun's Magnetic Poles Flipping, And More
So what's the latest and greatest in the wonderful world of high technology? Well, I'm glad to tell ya...
* Stock in Tesla Motors jumps after a second quarter profit. Yeah, that's right, a profit. Yeah, this electric car thing? Sure, it's never gonna work. (Eye roll.)
* You won't be able to see it, but it might affect the Earth's climate -- the sun's magnetic field is going through a big change. According to NASA, measurements taken from its supported observatories suggest that the sun's magnetic field is about to flip. But don't panic. This event happens approximately every 11 years.
* Apple's iPhone isn't only getting bested by Android-powered devices when it comes to happy customers -- it's also losing ground in sales. The research firm IDC says the iPhone continued to lose market share to Android phones in the second quarter.
* Samsung Electronics Co. has applied for U.S. and South Korean trademarks for a watch that connects to the Internet, the latest sign that consumer technology companies see wearable devices as the future of their business.
* On Jan. 29, 1951, a poor black woman from Baltimore walked into Johns Hopkins Hospital, complaining of pain in her abdomen. Henrietta Lacks died within the year, but, unbeknownst to her family, cells from the cancerous tumor that ended her life continued to live on in research labs around the world. On Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health announced in the journal Nature that the full genome of what are now called HeLa cells will be mapped, and the NIH and Lacks family will allow controlled access to a limited number of biomedical researchers.
* Another person with access to your computer can see your Google Chrome saved passwords through a simple series of steps. The security flaw was highlighted in a blog posted Tuesday by software developer Elliot Kember. Should you be worried?
* Hong Kong customs officials have seized a shipment of illegal ivory, rhino horns and leopard skins worth $5.3 million in the territory's second big bust of endangered species products in a month. (Warning: the picture in the article is just disgusting.)
* Iqbal Arshad, one of Motorola's top engineers, says that critics of the Moto X don't understand the revolutionary design of the new product, as he points out the merits of the new device in a Q&A interview with CNet.
* Those of us who have been on the Intertubes for a long time are enjoying the protracted tease of finally getting to see Yahoo's new logo.
* This is the modern equivalent to Michigan's old Interurban electric trains: South Korea has launched the world's first road-powered electric vehicle network to charge public buses while they're on the move.
* More photos of what appears to be Apple's next iPhone, or at least a lower-cost version of it, have cropped up. Sonny Dickson, who is a frequent leaker of all things Apple hardware, has posted a rather large gallery of the rear case of a white, plastic iPhone.
* A restaurant owner posts a picture of the mess made by toddlers, accompanied by a few sarcastic words. But the kids' moms fight back and the owner now says she's sorry. (Well yeah. What the heck do you expect, Emily Post from toddlers?)
* AOL once paid $850 million for the social network Bebo. Its creator, Michael Birch, has bought it back for $1 million, and aims to start over.
* Facebook-owned Instagram will now let members share video footage from the past with a new version of the application that includes the option to import clips from a smartphone's media library. Instagram version 4.1, released Wednesday, comes with the video import option and broaderAndroid support so that people using a device running the Android 4.0 operating system, aka "Ice Cream Sandwich," can also use the service's 15-second video feature.
* Cool: Decent, reasonably priced sound bars for smaller flat panel TVs.
* Several satellite companies are looking to improve the availability of Wi-Fi while you're in-flight, according to a new report. Starting next month, JetBlue Airways will connect to satellites that employ so-called spot-beam technology, Bloomberg is reporting.
* At a New York press conference on Wednesday, LG took the wraps off the LG G2, its newest flagship handset. Equipped with powerful specs, this G2 knocks the Korean mobile company's last flagship, the Optimus G Pro for AT&T, right out of the water. Not only does the new G2 sport a 13-megapixel camera like its main rival, the Samsung Galaxy S4, it also runs Android 4.2.2 and has a vivid 1080p HD display. Uncommonly, and not completely comfortably, its volume rocker and power buttons are located on the phone's back side.
