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Submission + - Black Boys Were Cut Out of a 2008 NSF Initiative to Get Them in the CS Pipeline

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, reports Politico, are flying to Silicon Valley next week to press the nation’s biggest tech companies to hire more African-American workers — a sign that the industry’s well-documented diversity problems are starting to generate new political heat in Washington. So perhaps they should know that back in 2008, the National Science Foundation's Broadening Participation in Computing program kicked off its million-dollar New Image For Computing (NIC) initiative, which was supposed to tackle tech's racial diversity problems. "The WGBH Educational Foundation together with the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and dozens of partners, proposes a major new initiative to reshape the image of computing among college-bound high school students, with a special focus on Latina girls and African-American boys," read the abstract. But that didn't last long. An interim report bearing the names of the NIC Leadership — including representatives of the NSF, ACM, Microsoft, Intel, NCWIT, Sun, and major U.S. universities — explained that getting black boys in the computer science pipeline was no longer Job #1. "Although the NIC initiative was originally designed to create messages that target college-bound high school students, especially African American males and Hispanic girls," explained the report, "our research shows little racial/ethnic differentiation in young people’s attitudes toward computer science. It does show, however, a significant gender gap. Because of this, the NIC initiative is shifting its focus and will initially concentrate on girls as a special target audience." According to a follow-up Wired story, the NSF money originally earmarked for African-American boys instead helped bring the world Dot Diva, a girls-only website that also received funding from Google, which was launched at a 2010 Microsoft-hosted event (video). And four years later, it was deja-vu-all-over-again, as Google used some of the $90 million it's earmarked for getting girls in the CS pipeline to bring the world Made With Code, a girls-only website, which was launched at a glitzy 2014 Google event (video).

Submission + - Lennart Poettering Announces the First systemd Conference (softpedia.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Lennart Poettering, the creator of the controversial init system and service manager for Linux-based operating systems, had the great pleasure of announcing the first systemd conference event. Dubbed systemd.conf, the event will take place later this year, between November 5-7, in Berlin, Germany. systemd developers and hackers, DevOps professionals, and Linux distribution packagers will be able to attend various workshops, as well as to collaborate with their fellow developers and plan the future of the project. Attendees will also be able to participate in an extended hackfest event, as well as numerous presentations held by important names in the systemd project, including Poettering himself.

Submission + - OPM hackers suspected in United Airlines breach (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by vivaoporto
vivaoporto writes: Bloomberg reports that the hackers who stole data on more than 22 million U.S. insurance holders and government employees in recent months breached another big target at around the same time — United Airlines.

United, the world's second-largest airline, detected an incursion into its computer systems in May or early June, said several people familiar with the probe. According to three of these people, investigators working with the carrier have linked the attack to a group of China-backed hackers they say are behind several other large heists — including the theft of security-clearance records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and medical data from health insurer Anthem Inc.

The airline is still trying to determine exactly which data was removed from the network, said two of the people familiar with the probe. That assessment took months in the OPM case, which was discovered in April and made public in June.

Besides passenger lists and other flight-related data, the hackers may also have taken information related to United’s mergers and acquisitions strategy, one of the people familiar with the investigation said.

Flight manifests usually contain the names and birthdates of passengers, but even if those files were taken, experts say that would be unlikely to trigger disclosure requirements in any of the 47 states with breach-notification laws.

The timing of the United breach also raises questions about whether it's linked to computer faults that stranded thousands of the airline's passengers in two incidents over the past couple of months. Two additional people close to the probe, who like the others asked not to be identified when discussing the investigation, say the carrier has found no connection between the hack and a July 8 systems failure that halted flights for two hours. They didn't rule out a possible, tangential connection to an outage on June 2.

Submission + - Kentucky Man shoots drone that was hovering over sunbathing 16-year old girl (wdrb.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Hillview, Kentucky resident William H. Merideth describes his Sunday afternoon: "Sunday afternoon, the kids – my girls – were out on the back deck, and the neighbors were out in their yard," Merideth said. "And they come in and said, 'Dad, there’s a drone out here, flying over everybody’s yard.'"

Merideth's neighbors saw it too. "It was just hovering above our house and it stayed for a few moments and then she finally waved and it took off," said neighbor Kim VanMeter. VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird. "I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard," she said.

Merideth agrees and said he had to go see for himself. “Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got under their back yard," Merideth said. "I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.’"

That moment soon arrived, he said. "Within a minute or so, here it came," he said. "It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky. I didn't shoot across the road, I didn't shoot across my neighbor's fences, I shot directly into the air."

It wasn't long before the drone's owners appeared. "Four guys came over to confront me about it, and I happened to be armed, so that changed their minds," Merideth said. "They asked me, 'Are you the S-O-B that shot my drone?' and I said, 'Yes I am,'" he said. "I had my 40mm Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting.'"

A short time later, Merideth said the police arrived. "There were some words exchanged there about my weapon, and I was open carry – it was completely legal," he said. "Long story short, after that, they took me to jail for wanton endangerment first degree and criminal mischief...because I fired the shotgun into the air."

Submission + - Hacking a 'Smart' Sniper Rifle (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It was inevitable: as soon as we heard about the computer-aimed rifles, we knew somebody would find a way to compromise their security. At the upcoming Black Hat security conference, researchers Runa Sandvik and Michael Auger will present their techniques for doing just that. "Their tricks can change variables in the scope’s calculations that make the rifle inexplicably miss its target, permanently disable the scope’s computer, or even prevent the gun from firing." In one demonstration they were able to tweak the rifle's ballistic calculations by making it think a piece of ammunition weighed 72 lbs instead of 0.4 ounces. After changing this value, the gun tries to automatically adjust for the weight, and shoots significantly to the left. Fortunately, they couldn't find a way to make the gun fire without physically pulling the trigger.

Submission + - Indonesians protest against expensive, unjust data tariffs (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Customers of Telkomsel, Indonesia’s state-owned mobile carrier, have joined in signing a petition outraged at the company’s data package pricing. Considered expensive even for those living in the country’s capital Jakarta, the telco charges up to twice as much for its data from customers considered to live in bad “zones” – or remote areas, with generally poorer communities. In an attempt to reverse the unjust pricing structure, activist Djali Gafur launched an internet petition called ‘Internet for the people’ – the site has already galvanised over 10,000 signatures.

Submission + - MPEG LA Announces Call for DASH Patents (streamingmedia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The MPEG LA has announced a call for patents essential to the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (or DASH) standard. According to the MPEG LA's press release, “Market adoption of DASH technology standards has increased to the point where the market would benefit from the availability of a convenient nondiscriminatory, nonexclusive worldwide one-stop patent pool license." The newly formed MPEG-DASH patent pool's licensing program will apparently offer "the market efficient access to this important technology."

Submission + - Amazon Proposes Dedicated Airspace For Drones (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has published two new position papers which lay out its vision for future drone regulation. Under Amazon's plan, altitudes under 200ft would be reserved for basic hobbyist drones and those used for things like videography and inspection. Altitudes between 200ft and 400ft would be designated for "well-equipped vehicles" capable of operating autonomously out of line of sight. They would need sophisticated GPS tracking, a stable data uplink, communications capabilities with other drones, and sensors to avoid collisions. This, of course, is where Amazon would want to operate its drone delivery fleet. From 400ft to 500ft would be a no-fly zone buffer between the drone airspace and integrated airspace. Amazon's plan also makes room for "predefined low-risk areas," where hobbyists and other low-tech drones can fly higher than the 200ft ceiling. "Additionally, it is Amazon's view that air traffic management operations should follow a 'managed by exception' approach. This means operators are always aware of what the fleet is doing, yet they only intervene in significant off-nominal cases."

Submission + - A Field Study on Technical Debt (cmu.edu)

Submitted by heidibrayer
heidibrayer writes: In their haste to deliver software capabilities, developers sometimes engage in less-than-optimal coding practices. If not addressed, these shortcuts can ultimately yield unexpected rework costs that offset the benefits of rapid delivery. Technical debt conceptualizes the tradeoff between the short-term benefits of rapid delivery and long-term value. Taking shortcuts to expedite the delivery of features in the short term incurs technical debt, analogous to financial debt, that must be paid off later to optimize long-term success. Managing technical debt is an increasingly critical aspect of producing cost-effective, timely, and high-quality software products, especially in projects that apply agile methods. A delicate balance is needed between the desire to release new software features rapidly to satisfy users and the desire to practice sound software engineering that reduces rework. Too often, however, technical debt focuses on coding issues when a broader perspective—one that incorporates software architectural concerns—is needed. This blog post, the first in a series, highlights the findings of a recent field study to assess the state of the practice and current thinking regarding technical debt and guide the development of a technical debt timeline.

Submission + - Intel And Micron Unveil 3D XPoint Memory, 1000X Speed And Endurance Over Flash (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Today at a press conference in San Francisco, Intel and Micron unveiled 3D XPoint (Cross Point) memory technology, a non-volatile memory architecture so disruptive it could very well change the entire landscape of consumer electronics and computer architectures for years to come. Intel and Micron claim that 3D XPoint memory is 1000 times faster than NAND, boasts 1000x the endurance of NAND, and offers 8 — 10 times the density of conventional memory. 3D XPoint isn't electron based, it's material based. The companies aren't diving into specifics yet surrounding the materials used in 3D XPoint, but the physics are fundamentally different than what we're used to. It's 3D stackable and its cross point connect structure allows for dense packing and individual access at the cell level from the top or bottom of a memory array. Better still, Intel alluded to 3D XPoint not being as cost-prohibitive as you might expect. Intel's Rob Crooke explained "You could put the cost somewhere between NAND and DRAM." Products with the new memory are expected to arrive in 2016 and the joint venture is in production with wafers now.

Submission + - Scientists identify possible new substance with highest melting point

Submitted by JoshuaZ
JoshuaZ writes: "Researchers from Brown University have tentatively identified an alloy of hafnium, nitrogen and carbon as having an expected melting point of about 7,460 degrees Fahrenheit (4120 Celsius). This exceeds the previous record breaker tantalum hafnium carbide which melts at 7,128 F (3942 C) and had stood as the record holder for almost a century. However, at this point, the record setter is still hypothetical, based on simulations. The new record has not yet been confirmed by experiment. http://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.020104 is the actual article while http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/28/behold-a-new-record-for-the-worlds-highest-melting-point/ is a lay summary. If the simulations turn out to be correct, the new alloy may be useful in parts like jet engines, and the door will be opened to using similar simulations to search for substances with even higher melting points or with other exotic properties.

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