Containing Ebola, Unlocking Phones & Other News You Need to Know

Here's a headline you don't want to see ...

Ebola death toll rises to 826 as outbreak spins out of control

… especially when it's written by the typically reserved editors of the Financial Times — hardly your average Fleet Street tabloid. The 826 figure comes from World Health Organization and, as the FT notes, is "nearly double the number of fatalities of the previous worst-ever epidemic."

The update suggests the outbreak is spinning out of control, with more than 50 deaths reported in three days from 28-30 July, as the spread of the virus outpaces efforts to contain it in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The disease develops in 2-12 days after one is infected, and has a mortality rate of 50-90%. There is no known cure. One American aid worker was returned to Atlanta for treatment, and on Sunday was said to be "improving." Before leaving Liberia, where Dr. Kent Brantly was working under the auspices of the NGO Samaritan's Purse, he received a dose of an experimental serum. Brantly is one of two US aid workers who were infected; the other, Nancy Writebol, who had been helping decontaminate workers at the same clinic, will be returning in a few days, according to SIM USA, the charity under whose auspices she is working. Writebol will fly back in the same specially-equipped medivac plane that spirited Brantly home. One of the reasons that there is no Ebola cure — there are several vaccines and treatments in various stages of development, per the Wall Street Journal — is that the financial incentive is so small, since the desease is so rare. To contract Ebola you need to be in close contact with someone who has died from it, or is seriously ill, which is why outbreaks tend to afflict close-knit communities — and aid workers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we may also be lacking of a treatment protocol because the chance of spreading outside such places as Africa are considered so small. For example, Peter Piot, one of the co-discoverers of the first Ebola outbreak in Zaire, told the Daily Mirror it was "very unlikely" that the disease would reach the UK. He also put the disease into some perspective by saying he'd "happily site next to" an infected person on a plane or train. "By that I mean someone who is already infected but is not yet ill. Even in the early days when they have fever, that's also not risky for others."

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President Obama has signed into law the so-called cellphone unlocking bill. The bill restores a little known (and less used) power to switch their mobile phone to another carrier. In theory, it's a big win for consumers, who now (again) have a right more-or-less terminated under the DMCA Act (protecting copyrights) to shop around, which could mean that Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile might be motivated to do things they wouldn't have had to, to keep your business. But it's a little more complicated than that: check out this concise LifeHacker article for all you need to know.

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One of Google's two barges is being decommissioned and sold for scrap. It's not the first Google beta to be mysteriously terminated, but certainly among the most curious, since the company never really got into what they were for. As reported by the Portland Press Herald:

The barge carries 63 shipping containers arranged to create a four-story building. The structure was assembled in New London, Connecticut, and the barge was towed to Portland, where Cianbro Corp. was scheduled to do interior work on it, including the installation of undisclosed technology equipment.

Cianbro has never disclosed the identity of the barge’s owner or its purpose. A similar mystery barge appeared on the waterfront in San Francisco last year. After some digging by reporters on both coasts, Google admitted that it had commissioned the barges to serve as “an interactive space where people can learn about new technology.”

When finished, the barge in Portland was to be towed to New York City and opened for an invitation-only crowd of hip and affluent urbanites.

Never mind.

The tech showroom story made a ton of sense Google is huge into hardware and there is no better way to show off your goods in the internet age than making people come to a barge down by the river. Google's other barge — in New York — is still afloat and dock fees are paid through October, the paper reports. I'm torn about wanting to know what they would have been used for. What do you think?

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Image: Samaritan's Purse

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