35630021
submission
cylonlover writes:
Body armor is a blessing and a curse for soldiers. Modern tactical armor has saved thousands of lives from bullets and bombs, but it can also be a major problem if it doesn’t fit properly. That’s what the women who make up 14 percent of the U.S. Army face on a regular basis. Now, according to the Army News Service, the Army is preparing to test a new armor that is tailored to the female form to replace the standard men's armor that the women now use. Working on data collected in studies overseas and at stateside army bases, the Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier has identified several problem areas and has developed a new armor that will be tested in 2013.
35629671
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
The Tor Project is considering paying exit relay hosts to make the network faster and more secure.
The project has called for discussion on the idea, notably from relay hosts. Its founder has suggested a $100 a month would attract fast and diverse nodes.
Exit nodes are the last hopping point on the Tor network and are critical to its performance and safety.
35625691
submission
theodp writes:
No, Steve Ballmer doesn't swap spit with contestants in a hot tub. Nor does he present a rose to each contestant he wishes to keep at the end of each episode. But the contestants in Microsoft's Be the Next Microsoft Employee web series, which is being billed as Top Chef for Geeks, do live together in a luxury waterfront home as they compete for the chance to interview for a job with the software giant. So, what's next from Microsoft? The Real Housewives of Medina?
35621041
submission
theodp writes:
IBM CEO Virginia M. Rometty's Big Blue bio boasts that she led the development of IBM Global Delivery Centers in India. In his latest column, Robert X. Cringely wonders if customers of those centers know what they're getting for their outsourcing buck. 'Right now,' writes Cringely, 'IBM is preparing to launch an internal program with the goal of increasing in 2013 the percentage of university graduates working at its Indian Global Delivery Centers (GDCs) to 50 percent. This means that right now most of IBM’s Indian staffers are not college graduates. Did you know that? I didn’t. I would be very surprised if IBM customers knew they were being supported mainly by graduates of Indian high schools.'
35619729
submission
MojoKid writes:
Back in November, 2002, Nvidia announced a line of GPUs it dubbed the GeForce FX. These cards were the first to integrate assets Nvidia had purchased from 3dfx (hence the name). NV claimed that these new cards would usher in the dawn of cinematic computing and the company released the eponymous "Dawn" demo to prove it. Now, ten years later, Nvidia has revisited the classic character and updated her for DirectX 11. The new demo is a rich forest interior with leaf, vine, and tree detail that puts the original to shame. In 2002, it took so much processing power to draw Dawn that her background was an artistic blur designed to imply "forest." What's more striking than this, given that we're comparing the character, is the difference in how she moves. Watch the full Dawn video from 2002, and she still walks and changes positions like a marionette. She's square in Uncanny Valley territory, with animations that are close, but not quite human. In New Dawn, these visual cues are much reduced. Dawn 2.0 moves more like a human and less like a puppet; her gestures and arm motions don't have the same programmed jerkiness.
35608825
submission
dcsmith writes:
Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier says that "A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media", and backs it up with a General Order to her Department
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) recognizes that members of the general public have a First Amendment right to video record, photograph, and/or audio record MPD members while MPD members are conducting official business or while acting in an official capacity in any public space, unless such recordings interfere with police activity.
35605423
submission
SkinnyGuy writes:
Some of us complain their doctors are too stiff, lack warmth and are too robotic. But calling such doctors “robots” may be a disservice to RP-Vita — the latest telepresence, healthcare bot from InTouch Health and iRobot.
RP-VITA (Remote Presence Virtual + Independent Telemedicine Assistant), unveiled this week at the Clinical Innovations Forum in Santa Barbara, is a remote-controlled telepresence robot that combines InTouch’s “telemedicine” technology and the autonomous navigation innovations introduced in iRobots’ AVA robot at CES in 2011.
35605191
submission
colinneagle writes:
Do you recall when researchers from the University of Texas hijacked a drone via GPS spoofing? Congress does and held a House Homeland Security Oversight Subcommittee hearing called Using Unmanned Aerial Systems Within the Homeland: Security Game Changer.
Professor Todd Humphreys testified [PDF] about how he and his team "repeatedly took control" of a civilian drone from a remote hilltop at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in front of Homeland Security and FAA officials. He had previously expressed concerns that spoofing GPS on a drone "is just another way of hijacking a plane" and crashing the hacked drone into another plane or into a building. At the hearing, Humphreys said, "Constructing from scratch a sophisticated GPS spoofer like the one developed by the University of Texas is not easy. It is not within the capability of the average person on the street, or even the average Anonymous hacker. But the emerging tools of software-defined radio and the availability of GPS signal simulators are putting spoofers within reach of ordinary malefactors."
35604467
submission
__aaqpaq9254 writes:
A new roundtable at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explores the question of whether nuclear energy is the answer to climate change, particularly in developing countries where energy needs are so great. This roundtable, like the ones before it, will be translated into Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish within a week of each article's publication. Here's a summary: "From desertification in China to glacier melt in Nepal to water scarcity in South Africa, climate change is beginning to make itself felt in the developing world. As developing countries search for ways to contain carbon emissions while also maximizing economic potential, a natural focus of attention is nuclear power. But nuclear energy presents its own dangers. Below, Wang Haibin of China, Anthony Turton of South Africa, and Hira Bahadur Thapa of Nepal answer this question: "Given nuclear energy's potential to slow global warming, do its benefits outweigh its risks, or do its risks outweigh its benefits for developing countries?"
