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Submission + - Google to measure air quality through Street View (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Eloking
Eloking writes: Google has teamed up with Aclima to incorporate environmental sensors into its Street View cars. Initially tested on three vehicles in the Denver metro area, the partnership should lead to a better understanding of overall air quality in urban environments.

Since its introduction back in 2007, Google's Street View platform has become a reliable and versatile tool. Quite aside from providing its 360-degree views from our roads, it's taken us underwater, across hiking trails and even to the top of mountains. The latest endeavor aims to deliver useful data on the air we breathe.

The goal of the project is to create high resolution maps of air quality across cities. It will see Street View cars equipped with sensors that allow them to take measurements of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitric oxide, ozone, methane, black carbon, particulate matter and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – all of which can have a negative impact on health.

Submission + - 3D 'smart camera' landmine detection research wins NGO funding (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers at the University of Bath have been awarded financial backing to further develop its new 3D camera technology for detecting landmines. The project has received £100,000 in funding from Sir Bobby Charlton’s charity, ‘Find a Better Way’, after entering a competition run by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Modern landmines are typically made from plastic, rendering traditional metal detection methods irrelevant. The Bath University researchers are investigating ways to combine metal detection with the latest 3D camera and imaging systems in order to detect all types of landmines using one technology.

Submission + - Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point?

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Geoff Ralston has an interesting essay explaining why is likely that electric car penetration in the US will take off at an exponential rate over the next 5-10 years rendering laughable the paltry predictions of future electric car sales being made today. Present projections assume that electric car sales will slowly increase as the technology gets marginally better, and as more and more customers choose to forsake a better product (the gasoline car) for a worse, yet “greener” version. According to Ralston this view of the future is, simply, wrong. — electric cars will take over our roads because consumers will demand them. "Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy," says Ralston. "The Tesla Model S has demonstrated that a well made, well designed electric car is far superior to anything else on the road. This has changed everything."

The Tesla Model S has sold so well because, compared to old-fashioned gasoline cars it is more fun to drive, quieter, always “full” every morning, more roomy, and it continuously gets better with automatic updates and software improvements. According to Ralston the tipping point will come when gas stations, not a massively profitable business, start to go out of business as many more electric cars are sold, making gasoline powered vehicles even more inconvenient. When that happens even more gasoline car owners will be convinced to switch. Rapidly a tipping point will be reached, at which point finding a convenient gas station will be nearly impossible and owning a gasoline powered car will positively suck. "Elon Musk has ushered in the age of the electric car, and whether or not it, too, was inevitable, it has certainly begun," concludes Ralston. "The future of automotive transportation is an electric one and you can expect that future to be here soon."

Submission + - Amazon Announces New Car Show Featuring the Old Top Gear Presenters (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by mknewman
mknewman writes: Amazon has announced that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May will be reuniting to create “an all-new car show” that will be exclusively on Amazon Prime.

The new show will be produced by the old-time Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman and is scheduled to go into production “shortly.” It will apparently appear on screens in 2016. For what it’s worth, Jeremy Clarkson has said that the move makes him “feel like I’ve climbed out of a bi-plane and into a spaceship.”
Power

Britain Shuts Off 750,000 Streetlights With No Impact On Crime Or Crashes 307

Posted by timothy from the in-the-dark dept.
Flash Modin writes: English cities are hard up for cash as the national government dolls out cuts. And in response, the country's councils — local governing bodies — have slashed costs by turning off an estimated 750,000 streetlights. Fans of the night sky and reduced energy usage are happy, but the move has also sparked a national debate. The Automobile Association claims six people have died as a direct result of dimming the lights. But a new study released Wednesday looked at 14 years of data from 63 local authorities across England and Wales and found that residents' chances of being attacked, robbed, or struck by a car were no worse on the darker streets.

Submission + - National Geographic Channel to air Ron Howard produced series 'The Red Planet' (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Proof positive that Marsmania is about to strike comes with the announcement that the National Geographic Channel is to broadcast a miniseries called “Red Planet” in 171 countries and 44 languages in 2016. The miniseries will be produced by Imagine Entertainment, with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, along with Radical Media. The show will depict the colonization of Mars from a unique perspective, mixing interviews and documentary footage from the present day with a dramatization set in the year 2032. Howard and Imagine Entertainment have been involved in such space related projects as the smash hit movie "Apollo 13" and the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon."

Submission + - Apollo Mission Footprints Are Disappearing Faster Than We Thought (io9.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Meteor showers and cometary debris are kicking up lunar dust at rates much higher than initially assumed, producing towering clouds above the Moonâ(TM)s surface. But what goes up must come down â" meaning itâ(TM)ll only be a matter of time before those iconic astronaut footprints will be gone forever.

Though we canâ(TM)t see it from Earth, the Moon features a non-uniform layer of dust just slightly above its surface. These towering clouds are comprised of tiny particles of moon and space dust kicked-up by the endless onslaught of incoming space debris. Such are the findings of a new Nature study by a University of Colorado research team led by physicist Mihaly Horanyi.
Graphics

On Linux, $550 Radeon R9 Fury Competes With $200~350 NVIDIA GPUs 83

Posted by timothy from the right-gas-for-the-engine dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this month AMD released the air-cooled Radeon R9 Fury graphics card with Fury X-like performance, but the big caveat is the bold performance is only to be found on Windows. Testing the R9 Fury X on Linux revealed the Catalyst driver delivers devastatingly low performance for this graphics card. With OpenGL Linux games, the R9 Fury performed between the speed of a GeForce GTX 960 and 970, with the GTX 960 retailing for around $200 while the GTX 970 is $350. The only workloads where the AMD R9 Fury performed as expected under Linux was the Unigine Valley tech demo and OpenCL compute tests. There also is not any open-source driver support yet for the AMD R9 Fury.

Submission + - James Jude, MD Co-inventor of CPR dies at 87 (miamiherald.com)

Submitted by voxelman
voxelman writes: Jim Jude, my uncle, was a kind and modest man. The impact of his insight into the significance of a change in blood pressure from the application of defibrillation paddles to a dog's chest has led to the saving of millions of lives through cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). His passing is a release from a debilitating illness that made a mockery of his contributions to medical science. He will be missed by all that knew him.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: You know Uber's real-time map showing the auto locations? It's fake - Dispatch Times (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

Dispatch Times
You know Uber's real-time map showing the auto locations? It's fake
Dispatch Times
But Uber UK says that the cars are real, if occasionally lagging behind real time. Based on the investigation they have made, the company has further concluded that the number illustrated by the app does not represent an accurate representation of the...
Uber shows phantom cabs on taxi mapBetaNews
Uber's apps might be lyin...Bitterwallet
You know Uber's real-time map showing the vehicle locations? It's fakePress Examiner
The Utah People's Post-Mashable
all 40 news articles

Submission + - Britain shuts off 750,000 streetlights with no impact on crime or crashes (astronomy.com)

Submitted by Flash Modin
Flash Modin writes: English cities are hard up for cash as the national government dolls out cuts. And in response, the country's councils — local governing bodies — have slashed costs by turning off an estimated 750,000 streetlights. Fans of the night sky and reduced energy usage are happy, but the move has also sparked a national debate. The Automobile Association claims six people have died as a direct result of dimming the lights. But a new study released Wednesday looked at 14 years of data from 63 local authorities across England and Wales and found that residents' chances of being attacked, robbed, or struck by a car were no worse on the darker streets.

Submission + - OwnStar Device Can Remotely Find, Unlock and Start GM Cars

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Car hacking just jumped up a few levels. A security researcher has built a small device that can intercept the traffic from the OnStar RemoteLink mobile app and give him persistent access to a user’s vehicle to locate, unlock, and start it.

The device is called OwnStar and it’s the creation of Samy Kamkar, a security researcher and hardware hacker who makes a habit of finding clever ways around the security of various systems, including garage doors, wireless keyboards, and drones. His newest creation essentially allows him to take remote control of users’ vehicles simply by sending a few special packets to the OnStar service. The attack is a car thief’s dream.

Kamkar said that by standing near a user who has the RemoteLink mobile app open, he can use the OwnStar device to intercept requests from the app to the OnStar service. He can then take over control of the functions that RemoteLink handles, including unlocking and remotely starting the vehicle.
The Military

US Navy Tests 3D Printing Custom Drones On Its Ships 66

Posted by timothy from the just-in-time dept.
itwbennett writes: Researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School are testing the use of 3D printers on ships to produce custom drones outfitted for specialized missions. The idea, said Alan Jaeger, a faculty research associate at the school, is that ships could set sail with kits of the core electronics parts, since they are common to most drones, but have the bodies designed according to specific requirements for each mission. A prototype drone was designed by engineers on shore based on requirements of the sailors at sea, and the 3D design file was emailed to the USS Essex over a satellite link. Flight tests revealed some of the potential problems, most of which were associated with operating the drone rather than the printing itself, Jaeger said. 'Even with a small amount of wind, something this small will get buffeted around,' he said. They also had to figure out the logistics of launching a drone from a ship, getting it back, how it integrated with other flight operations, and interference from other radio sources like radar.

Submission + - CISA: the dirty deal between Google and the NSA that no one is talking about (thehill.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: It's hard to find a more perfect example of this collusion than in a bill that's headed for a vote soon in the U.S. Senate: the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA.

CISA is an out and out surveillance bill masquerading as a cybersecurity bill. It won't stop hackers. Instead, it essentially legalizes all forms of government and corporate spying.

Here's how it works. Companies would be given new authority to monitor their users — on their own systems as well as those of any other entity — and then, in order to get immunity from virtually all existing surveillance laws, they would be encouraged to share vaguely defined "cyber threat indicators" with the government. This could be anything from email content, to passwords, IP addresses, or personal information associated with an account. The language of the bill is written to encourage companies to share liberally and include as many personal details as possible.

That information could then be used to further exploit a loophole in surveillance laws that gives the government legal authority for their holy grail — "upstream" collection of domestic data directly from the cables and switches that make up the Internet.

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