Shopping
US Senate passes Internet sales tax consideration by big margin
It’s been clear for a long time that the freedom of web transactions from sales tax would end some day. We just got closer. Joe Mullin at Ars Technica reports: Your tax-free days of online shopping are numbered. If S743, also known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, becomes law, the millions of Americans who have [...]
End of the free ride on Internet sales tax is coming
A lot of us in the US have been enjoying buying things on the Internet without having to pay state sales tax but that free ride is probably drawing to a close before too long. Signs are accumulating that state sales tax on web purchases is coming. The US Senate has endorsed the idea in [...]
Monday links
Artificial intelligence better than doctors at diagnosing treating patientsAI can think like a doctor, but faster and with more information, Indiana U. researchers find—ITWorld The future of mobile CPUs, part 1: Today’s fork in the road2013 may be a big year for the evolution of smartphones and tablets—At Ars Technica, David Kanter discusses where mobile [...]
Catching up
Here is some interesting stuff from the last couple of weeks: They Know What You’re Shopping ForThe widening ability to associate people’s real-life identities with their browsing habits marks a privacy milestone, further blurring the already unclear border between our public and private lives. In pursuit of ever more precise and valuable information about potential [...]
Monday links
Spaun, the most realistic artificial human brain yetA group of neuroscientists and software engineers at the University of Waterloo in Canada are claiming to have built the world’s most complex, large-scale model simulation of the human brain. The simulated brain, which runs on a supercomputer, has a digital eye which it uses for visual input, [...]
More shopping guides
The shopping season is in full swing and here are some more guides for buying consumer electronics: How to buy the best laptop in the age of Windows 8Laptops used to be simple. Almost all of them had a clamshell design, with a display that folded onto the keyboard. You picked the laptop you needed [...]
Monday links
Technology built into mannequins helping stores track customersPCWorld reports about stores tracking what customers do and using facial recognition software in mannequins Microsoft’s Long And Winding Road To Becoming Kind Of CoolLong have I hated Microsoft. For decades their bloated mediocrity infuriated every fiber of my being. Like Adam Sandler and leaf-blowers, for a very [...]
