Geek News

Did you like the idea of Facebook splitting your News Feed into two? No? You're not the only one. Facebook has ended its Explore Feed test after user surveys indicated it wasn't popular. Explore was supposed to help you see more of your friends and family by sending Pages (such as companies and celebrities) to a separate feed, but users weren't happy with the results. They weren't as satisfied with the posts they did see, Facebook said, and it didn't actually help them connect with their social circle. It won't surprise you to learn what Facebook is doing instead: the company is counting on its recent refocusing of the News Feed to please those who want to see more from their friends. The company is also planning to refine the tests themselves, doing more to both choose test areas and tell you what's happening with those experiments. Facebook regularly conducts tests like this, and there's never a guarantee that a feature will make the cut. Howeve...

Humanity is going to need a lot of lithium batteries if electric cars are going to take over , and that's a problem when there's only so much lithium available from conventional mines. There may be an oddball solution for that, however: turn the world's oceans into eco-friendly mines. Scientists have outlined a desalination technique that would use metal-organic frameworks (sponge-like structures with very high surface areas) with sub-nanometer pores to catch lithium ions while purifying ocean water. The approach mimics the tendency of cell membranes to selectively dehydrate and carry ions, leaving the lithium behind while producing water you can drink. While the concept of extracting lithium certainly isn't new, this would be much more efficient and environmentally friendly. You don't need to pump water or use harmful (not to mention inefficient) chemicals. Instead of tearing up the landscape to find mineral deposits, battery makers would just have to deploy ...

When Apple temporarily pulled Telegram from the App Store over "inappropriate content," it left many wondering just what that content was. We now know: 9to5Mac has learned that the company removed the app after discovering that people had been distributing child pornography through the app. Apple both contacted Telegram's team and authorities (including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) to both address the specific violation and to ensure that there were "more controls" in place to prevent a repeat. As a rule, internet services use a range of safeguards to prevent the spread of child porn, such as shared hash lists that prevent a file on one site from being posted elsewhere. It's not certain what solutions Telegram implemented, but the relatively short turnaround (its software was back within hours) suggests it didn't require a fundamental change. The nature of the discovery might provide a clue as to how it was distributed....