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Earth

Submission + - Solar X-Flare Blasts Directly Toward Earth

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: From over at spaceweather.com comes this news flash: 'Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th at 1653 UT. Because this sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 10:20 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend.' The article continues: '

Warning Condition: Onset

Potential Impacts: An enhancement in the energetic portion of the solar radiation spectrum may indicate increased biological risk to astronauts or passengers and crew in high latitude, high altitude flights. Additionally, energetic particles may represent an increased risk to all satellite systems susceptible to single event effects'
NASA

Submission + - NASA, SpaceX Complete Design Review of Dragon (nasa.gov)

Submitted by jamstar7
jamstar7 writes:

NASA partner Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has completed an important design review of the crewed version of its Dragon spacecraft. The concept baseline review presented NASA with the primary and secondary design elements of its Dragon capsule designed to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit, including the International Space Station.

SpaceX is one of several companies working to develop crew transportation capabilities under the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Through CCDev2, NASA is helping the private sector develop and test new spacecraft and rockets with the goal of making commercial human spaceflight services available to commercial and government customers.

The review was started on June 12, 2012. It's part of the process to meet requirements to get the Dragon man-rated in order to get crew to the ISS and beyond. Without the man-rating, all they'll ever be able to do is cargo launches. Man-rating will also allow them to qualify for insurance for manned flights.

Submission + - Appeals court upholds sanction against BitTorrent download attorney (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has upheld sanctions awarded by a District Court against one of the lawyers bringing copyright infringement cases against individuals for BitTorrent movie downloads, in Mick Haig Productions v. Does 1-670. The Court's opinion (PDF) described the lawyer's "strategy" as "suing anonymous internet users for allegedly downloading pornography illegally using the powers of the court to find their identity, then shaming or intimidating them into settling for thousands of dollars — a tactic that he has employed all across the state and that has been replicated by others across the country"."
NASA

Submission + - Astrobotic Completes Moon Rover Chassis (googlelunarxprize.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Astrobotic, a Google Lunar X Prize team and private startup, has completed its second rover's chassis. This rover is high tech and will search for water at the lunar poles. Plus its one of the largest of their rovers.
Censorship

Submission + - Washington Needs to Rethink How it Pushes These Copyright Laws (vice.com)

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "Lamar Smith just can’t do anything right. The Texas congressman and widely despised author of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) ruffled the Internet’s feathers once again this week with the quiet unveiling of a new piece of legislation that’s drawing criticism for being plucked out of SOPA’s language and rushed through Congress. The Intellectual Property Attaché Act (IPAA) would streamline the process by which the U.S. protects its intellectual property by enforcing U.S. copyright law abroad through specially assigned diplomats or attachés. These officers would report to a new agency-level position, the Assistant Secretary for Intellectual Property and push agendas that, according to the bill’s language, are “consistent with the economic interests of the United States, both domestically and abroad.”"
Science

Submission + - Study debunks link between eye movement and lying (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by spiffmastercow
spiffmastercow writes: A recent study shows that the PHB-preferred method of telling when someone is lying — check to see if they look to the right — is complete BS. Next up, debunking the relationship between ground hogs and annual climate forecasts.
Hardware

Submission + - ODROID-X is like a quad-core Raspberry Pi for $129 (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: So you’re intrigued by the $35 Raspberry Pi, but just don’t feel like its 700MHz processor will be able to handle your DIY computing needs? Korean company hardkernel has a slightly beefier option for you: the ODROID-X developer board.

The ODROID features a smokin’ fast Samsung Exynos 4412 processor clocked at 1.4GHz — and it also happens to pack four cores. It’s safe to assume that the Cortex-A9-based 4412 is a substantial upgrade over the Pi’s ARM11 chip. And with a Mali-400 GPU on board (like the Samsung Galaxy S3), the ODROID offers plenty of extra multimedia muscle, too. It’s also got four times as much memory (1GB vs. 256MB) and a whole slew of connectivity options. There are six USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet jack, audio in and out, an SD card reader, and a micro HDMI output. The ODROID (which measures 90 x 94mm) is about twice as wide as the Raspberry Pi, but that’s understandable. All those extra connectors take up space.

As for operating system compatibility? It ships with Android but will happily boot up Linux, too.
Patents

Submission + - Why There Are Too Many Patents in America (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by
whitroth
whitroth writes: "The judge who just dismissed the lawsuit between Apple and Motorola writes a column explaining what he considers to be a resonable use of patents, and unreasonable ones. One of his thoughts would be to require a patent holder to produce the patented item within a certain time, to cut out patent trolls."
Security

Submission + - The Linux security stick you give to your clueless friends (betanews.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With slick marketing, a great sense of humor, and a practical, useful product idea, Texas startup Jumpshot launched its initial public funding round on Kickstarter this week. The long and short of Jumpshot is that it's a USB stick that removes bloatware, adware, spyware, and malware in a package that toddlers and grannies alike would be able to use. When Jumpshot is cleaning the system in the background, the user can stay connected and browse the Web in a Linux-based sandbox.

Submission + - Why Amazon wants to pay sales tax (slate.com)

Submitted by Maximum Prophet
Maximum Prophet writes: A while ago, Amazon caved on paying individual states sales taxes. Now we know why. Amazon is setting up same day delivery warehouses, *everywhere*. They will put most normal retailers out of business.

Submission + - 3D without glasses (phys.org)

Submitted by
daleallan
daleallan writes: "MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture group offers a new approach to multiple-perspective, glasses-free 3-D. It's a video system using three layered LCD panels displaying bizarre patterns that collectively produce a coherent, high-resolution, multiperspective 3-D image. It's not exactly the holographic TV that would mimic realworld 3D, but it's possible now with LCD screens."
Security

Submission + - The Use of Exploit Kits Changed Spam Runs

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Spammers used to depend on email recipients to tie the noose around their own necks by inputing their personal and financial information in credible spoofs of legitimate websites, but with the advent of exploit kits, that technique is slowly getting sidelined. Prompted by the rise in numbers of spam runs leading to pages hosting exploit kits, Trend Micro researchers have recently been investigating a number of high-volume spam runs using the Blackhole exploit kit. According to them, the phishing messages of today have far less urgency and the message is implicit: "Your statement is available online"; or "Incoming payment received", or "Password reset notification."
Data Storage

Submission + - Sapphire disk to last tens of thousands of years (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: No data storage medium seems to last long before becoming obsolete. This has become an issue for the builders of nuclear waste repositories, who are trying to preserve records of what they've buried and where, not for a few years but for tens of thousands of years. The solution may be a sapphire disk inside which information is engraved using platinum. The prototype costs around $30,493 to make, but Patrick Charton of the French nuclear waste management agency ANDRA says it will survive for a million years. The aim, Charton says, is to provide 'information for future archaeologists.' But, he concedes: 'We have no idea what language to write it in.'
Data Storage

Submission + - A Million-Year Hard Disk (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Pity the builders of nuclear waste repositories. They have to preserve records of what they've buried and where, not for a few years but for tens of thousands of years, perhaps even millions. Trouble is, no current storage medium lasts that long. Today, Patrick Charton of the French nuclear waste management agency ANDRA presented one possible solution to the problem: a sapphire disk inside which information is engraved using platinum. The prototype shown costs €25,000 to make, but Charton says it will survive for a million years. The aim, Charton says, is to provide "information for future archaeologists." But, he concedes: "We have no idea what language to write it in."
Canada

Submission + - Canadian banks rushing to offer virtual wallets (theglobeandmail.com) 1

Submitted by silentbrad
silentbrad writes: From the Globe and Mail: Canada’s big banks are preparing to launch “virtual wallets” as early as this fall that will allow consumers to digitally consolidate their credit and debit cards from any financial institution, and use them to make purchases online and through their cellphones at cash registers. It is being called the biggest change to the way consumers pay for goods in Canada in decades, and for the banks moving quickly into this space, the strategy is about keeping ownership of the vast and potentially lucrative stores of data that are involved in transactions. Royal Bank of Canada is expected to be first into the market in October, when it launches a digital wallet for mobile phones that will use RBC cards at first, but will eventually expand to welcome all brands of debit and credit cards. A few months later, the bank will launch a digital wallet for online purchases in partnership with Visa that holds all varieties of cards, regardless of brand. The majority of the banking sector is expected to follow suit in the next year or so, with each financial institution relying on the concept of “aliases,” where a password lets consumers access their payment cards, but protects personal information from being passed to the merchant. The alias method is similar to how online services such as PayPal work. ... Retailers can use the information contained in transactions, stripped of details that violate privacy laws, to tailor offerings or promotions to consumers. And the banks figure they can build a new business from that new world. Location data on phones can help neighbourhood stores connect with customers in the area, while transaction data online can give insight into consumer habits and tastes. Consumers will be able to turn this feature on and off, Mr. McKay said, but will have access to offers, promotions and sales that would make it attractive. It is a potentially lucrative new business for the banks – making money off the data collected from each payment made via credit or debit cards, and the access the bank has to the consumer.
Piracy

Submission + - The best things in life are free, especially if you're downloading... (thetechblock.com)

Submitted by
thetechblock
thetechblock writes: "$6. That’s the price I paid to rent the delightful Pixar production “Wall-E” from iTunes. But, obviously, that’s not enough money for me to not be treated like a criminal, for me to actually watch the movie the way I wanted to, or to even watch it at all, in any way. Sure, it’s a rental, so I expect DRM. But even then, I would’ve had the same experience if I’d bought it."

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