Month: September 2018

"Time to sleep"—inside Ukraine. A few new "fans" of Russian soldier Sanya Sotkin noticed his geolocation faux pas.

Proposed legislation now being considered by Russia's Duma would attempt to bring to an end a particular practice among members of Russia's armed forces that has become something of a diplomatic and tactical thorn in the military's side—the posting of photos and other information on social media that gives away the operations and positions of their units.

The draft bill states that "servicemen are prohibited to place in mass media, and the Internet information (including photos, video, geolocation data and other information) about yourself and other servicemen disclosing the department they belong to, information about their official activities or service activities of other military personnel, the activities of military units, organizations and units in which they perform military service, and their place of deployment, except for cases provided for by regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation."

In an explanatory note, the bill's authors stated:

Enlarge / A Verizon logo at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

Verizon Wireless will start offering a 5G-based wireless home Internet service next month in parts of four US cities, with service coming to other cities at an as-yet-unspecified date.

"Typical" download speeds will be around 300Mbps. The max speed of nearly 1Gbps will be available "depending on location," and there will be "no data caps," Verizon said. The speeds are fast enough to rival Verizon's fiber-to-the-home service, and the carrier has previously claimed that its 5G network will have "single-millisecond latencies."

Verizon 5G Home will be available in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento beginning on October 1, and customers can sign up starting on Thursday morning, Verizon announced yesterday.

Enlarge / Andre Haddad is Turo's CEO, and his 2006 Carrera S was the first Porsche listed on the platform, back in 2012. Six years later and it's still in service, including a booking this weekend. (credit: Turo)

The experience of renting a Porsche through the peer-to-peer car sharing platform Turo is about to get an upgrade. On Tuesday, Porsche and Turo announced a new pilot program, one of a number being tried by the German OEM as it—along with the rest of the auto industry—wraps its head around the ever-changing mobility landscape.

Porsche is popular on Turo; the marque is the fourth-most commonly searched on the platform. And Porsche is popular at Turo; CEO Andre Haddad describes himself as a lifelong enthusiast.

It's a trait common to most of the Porsche-owning Turo "hosts" (the people who lend their cars), a group which counts Haddad as its first member; in 2012 his own Porsche—a 2006 Carrera S—was the first one available through Turo. (Turo says that there are 4,717 Porsches listed in total.) Six years later and his car is still in service, including a booking this coming weekend, Haddad told me.

Enlarge / A desert (left) and beach (right) male, covered with beetle larvae that will eat his children.

Sometimes the Universe fills you with wonder. Other times, well, it leaves you filled with existential dread. This story falls into the latter category.

It's about bees, and the beetles that do horrifying things to them. Like luring them into expecting sex, only to be swarmed by beetle larvae, who hop on to the bee to get a free ride to a bee's nest, where they eat the next generation. New research shows that the beetles are not just kind of evil, but phenomenally good at it, customizing a mix of pheromones to lure the local bee population and lurking where bees go looking for sex.

Dinner for dozens

The beetles in question are generically termed "blister beetles," part of a large group of insects that you probably wouldn't look twice at. The adults are pretty generically beetle-like, and generally flightless. Many adults are vegetarians. The problem is their kids.