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Submission + - IBM launches first new mainframe in 3 years (wired.com)

Submitted by HockeyPuck
HockeyPuck writes: IBM has just launched their newest mainframe, the first in 3 years. The z13 powered by up to 12 Z CPUs each having with 12 cores and each core managing 8 threads simultaneously accessing 10TB of RAM. Additionally, there are 11 Level-3 caches on chip and a custom chipset called Centaur that provides a level 4 cache with 410 GB/s memory bandwidth. It includes hardware engines dedicated to encryption and providing analytics of transactions in real-time, all while being able to support 8,000 virtual machines.

Submission + - Dark matter in galaxies: proven!

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: If you look at the stars in a galaxy — and then at all the different wavelengths of light that there are — you’d think you can do a good job of reconstructing its mass, and where it’s located. Makes sense, right? Only then, if you take those observations and compare them to how the stars within the galaxy actually move, you’d be shocked to find that what you see isn’t what you get! You might think to invoke dark matter, or you might seek to change the laws of gravity, but there’s a brilliant observational test we can make to tell the two scenarios apart. And for the first time, on the scales of an individual galaxy, we’ve seen the dark matter explanation emerge as the only one that makes sense.

Submission + - The Mainframe is Dead! Long Live the Mainframe! 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The death of the mainframe has been predicted many times over the years but it has prevailed because it has been overhauled time and again. Now Steve Lohr reports that IBM has just released the z13, a new mainframe engineered to cope with the huge volume of data and transactions generated by people using smartphones and tablets. “This is a mainframe for the mobile digital economy,” says Tom Rosamilia. “It’s a computer for the bow wave of mobile transactions coming our way.” IBM claims the z13 mainframe is the first system able to process 2.5 billion transactions a day and has a host of technical improvements over its predecessor, including three times the memory, faster processing and greater data-handling capability. IBM spent $1 billion to develop the z13, and that research generated 500 new patents, including some for encryption intended to improve the security of mobile computing. Much of the new technology is designed for real-time analysis in business. For example, the mainframe system can allow automated fraud prevention while a purchase is being made on a smartphone. Another example would be providing shoppers with personalized offers while they are in a store, by tracking their locations and tapping data on their preferences, mainly from their previous buying patterns at that retailer.

IBM brings out a new mainframe about every three years, and the success of this one is critical to the company’s business. Mainframes alone account for only about 3 percent of IBM’s sales. But when mainframe-related software, services and storage are included, the business as a whole contributes 25 percent of IBM’s revenue and 35 percent of its operating profit. Ronald J. Peri, chief executive of Radixx International was an early advocate in the 1980s of moving off mainframes and onto networks of personal computers. Today Peri is shifting the back-end computing engine in the Radixx data center from a cluster of industry-standard servers to a new IBM mainframe and estimates the total cost of ownership including hardware, software and labor will be 50 percent less with a mainframe. “We kind of rediscovered the mainframe,” says Peri.

Submission + - Carnivorous pitcher plant "out-thinks" insects (discovery.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A carnivorous pitcher plant is changing its behavior in response to natural weather fluctuations, allowing it to give up its prey in order to capture more.

The pitcher plant, which has liquid-filled leaves shaped like funnels, has the ability to allow some of its prey, such as ants, to escape by “switching off” its trap."

The first ant reports back to the other ants that it found a large batch of sweet nectar, causing a large contingent of ants to descend upon it. If the trap captures the first ant, it won’t be able to capture many more ants later.

Submission + - FBI warns of destructive Cyber attack in wake of attack on Sony (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Reuters news service is reporting: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned U.S. businesses that hackers have used malicious software to launch a destructive cyberattack in the United States, following a devastating breach last week at Sony Pictures Entertainment." Reuters also states the FBI issue a confidential report on the attack which mentions: "The report said the malware overrides all data on hard drives of computers, including the master boot record, which prevents them from booting up." Anybody actually seen this yet in the wild?

Submission + - Teen Reported to Police After Finding Security Hole in Website (wired.com)

Submitted by mwu
mwu writes: A teenager in Australia who thought he was doing a good deed by reporting a security vulnerability in a government website was reported to the police.

Joshua Rogers, a 16-year-old in the state of Victoria, found a basic security hole that allowed him to access a database containing sensitive information for about 600,000 public transport users who made purchases through the Metlink web site run by the Transport Department. It was the primary site for information about train, tram and bus timetables. The database contained the full names, addresses, home and mobile phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, and a nine-digit extract of credit card numbers used at the site, according to The Age newspaper in Melbourne.

Rogers says he contacted the site after Christmas to report the vulnerability but never got a response. After waiting two weeks, he contacted the newspaper to report the problem. When The Age called the Transportation Department for comment, it reported Rogers to the police.

Submission + - Building a better bike helmet out of paper

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Inspired by nature, a London man believes the solution to safer bike helmets is to build them out of paper. '"The animal that stood out was the woodpecker. It pecks at about ten times per second and every time it pecks it sustains the same amount of force as us crashing at 50 miles per hour," says Surabhi. "It's the only bird in the world where the skull and the beak are completely disjointed, and there's a soft corrugated cartilage in the middle that absorbs all the impact and stops it from getting a headache." In order to mimic the woodpecker's crumple zone, Anirudha turned to a cheap and easily accessible source — paper. He engineered it into a double-layer of honeycomb that could then be cut and constructed into a functioning helmet. "What you end up with is with tiny little airbags throughout the helmet," he says.'

Submission + - Orbital Sciences Cygnus Commercial Resupply Craft Docks With The ISS (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by Kenseilon
Kenseilon writes: After two delays due to cold weather and conditions in space, Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus commercial resupply craft reached the International Space Station on Jan. 12. The docking mission was led by NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins and Koichi Wakata, an astronaut from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

Orbital Sciences’ International Space Station Commercial Resupply Mission, ORB-1, was scheduled to launch on Jan. 7 but was delayed due to extreme cold. ORB-1 was rescheduled for Jan. 8 but was scrapped due to space weather caused by an X-class solar flare, the first of 2014, which led to an increased amount of space radiation. Orbital successfully launched ORB-1 on Jan. 9, at 1:08 p.m. EST from Wallops Island, Virginia.

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