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Submission + - Japan Develops Single Passenger Silent Mini Electric Helicopters, Travels at 100 (rocketnews24.com)

Submitted by exoticcamote
exoticcamote writes: Every once in a while a story comes along about a flying car or helicopter that fits in a briefcase, but they always disappear into the ether never coming to fruition. It’s understandable since everyone having their own mass produced flying machine would be a safety and law enforcement nightmare.

This time, however, Hirobo in Hiroshima Prefecture may be rolling out a personal helicopter that will actually get off the ground.

Submission + - What It's Like to Be Clinically Nocturnal (vice.com)

Submitted by citadrianne
citadrianne writes: A few years later, in high school, Julia got a full diagnosis: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, which the DSM-5 defines as a subset of Circadian Rhythm Sleep-Wake Disorder and Wikipedia defines as “a dysregulation of a person's circadian rhythm (biological clock), compared to the general population and relative to societal norms.”

Basically, the sun makes Julia tired. If the 9 to 5 workday didn’t force everyone to keep the same hours, Julia would go to bed just before dawn and sleep until noon. In other words, she is clinically nocturnal.

The new doctor gave her Ritalin to complement the Ambien.

Submission + - Gun-firing drone video causes controversy (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A video posted on YouTube showing a drone firing a gun in a wooded area has caused some controversy today [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/16/drone-firing-handgun-video-youtube]. The short video shows a four-rotored custom drone with a special rig containing a handgun. The handgun proceeds to fire four shots, handling the recoil better than might be expected. The user who posted the video also submitted it to Reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/3cyd67/], where a commenter noted that the apparent use of a solenoid trigger would class the device as an automatic weapon under ATF rules.

Submission + - MasterCard Releases Open API Declaration

Submitted by rjmarvin
rjmarvin writes: MasterCard has released an Open API Declaration http://sdtimes.com/mastercard-... filled with promises from MasterCard to developers using its APIs. Sebastien Taveau, chief developer evangelist at MasterCard, said that building APIs requires openness and dialogue with the developers who will be consuming it. The MasterCard Open API Declaration includes a quote from the company’s CEO, Ajay Banga, who wrote in the declaration that MasterCard is “bringing together developers and entrepreneurs using MasterCard APIs to create new applications to drive a new generation of commerce through our products, solutions and services.” The declaration https://developer.mastercard.c... contains promises such as “When a developer requests a technology feature or reports a problem, the Open API Team won’t just listen. We’ll act" and offers a road map for the MasterCard APIs and toolsets out to 2020.

Submission + - Mozilla Disables Flash in Firefox by Default

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: As the zero days in Adobe Flash continue to pile up, Mozilla has taken the unusual step of disabling by default all versions of Flash in Firefox.

The move is a temporary one as Adobe prepares to patch two vulnerabilities in Flash that were discovered as a result of the HackingTeam document dump last week. Both vulnerabilities are use-after-free bugs that can be used to gain remote code execution. One of the flaws is in Action Script 3 while the other is in the BitMapData component of Flash.

Exploits for these vulnerabilities were found in the data taken from HackingTeam in the attack disclosed last week. An exploit for one of the Flash vulnerabilities, the one in ActionScript 3, has been integrated into the Angler exploit kit already and there’s a module for it in the Metasploit Framework, as well.

Submission + - Elektra One is First Solar-Electric Aircraft to Cross Alps in Both Directions (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: It's been quite a month for electric aircraft. First, the Solar Impulse 2 broke distance and duration records when it flew from Japan to Hawaii. Then, two competing teams both claimed to have made the world's first electric flight across the English Channel. Now, Germany's PC-Aero says that its Elektra One Solar has become the first solar-electric plane to cross the Alps in both directions.

Submission + - As Cloud Growth Booms, Server Farms Get Super-Sized (datacenterfrontier.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: Internet titans are concentrating massive amounts of computing power in regional cloud campuses housing multiple data centers. These huge data hubs, often in rural communities, enable companies to rapidly add server capacity and electric power amid rapid growth of cloud hosting and social sharing. As this growth continues, we'll see more of these cloud campuses, and they’ll be bigger than the ones we see today. Some examples from this month: Google filed plans for a mammoth 800,000 square foot data center near Atlanta, Equinix announced 1 million square feet of new data centers on its campus in Silicon Valley, and Facebook began work on a $1 billion server farm in Texas that will span 750,000 square feet.
Bug

65,000+ Land Rovers Recalled Due To Software Bug 97

Posted by timothy from the at-least-they're-not-in-space dept.
An anonymous reader writes with word that owners of Range Rover and Range Rover Sport SUVs (model year 2013 and newer) will need to get their cars' software updated, which means a visit to a dealer. The update will fix a bug in the cars' locking system, which occasionally resulted in car doors randomly unlocking and opening themselves (in one instance, when the car was moving). This is not the first time that a car manufacturer asked customers to contact dealers for a security update. In July, Ford has recalled over 430,000 cars in North America because of a bug that prevented the engine from shutting down even after the ignition key was put into the "off" position and removed.

Submission + - Old MS Office feature can be exploited to deliver, execute malware (net-security.org)

Submitted by Errorcod3
Errorcod3 writes: A Microsoft Office functionality that has been in use since the early 1990s can be exploited to deliver malicious, executable files to users without triggering widely used security software, claims security researcher Kevin Beaumont.

  The feature in question is the OLE Packager, which allows content (even executable content such as .exe or .js files) to be embedded in Office documents.

  Beaumont says he contacted Microsoft about this in March and shared with them that threat actors were experimenting with it in the wild (he doesn't say how he found that out).

  "At the time they asked me not to post information about the problem online. They have not addressed the problem, and believe it is a feature of Office," he noted, and presumably finally decided to disclose the existence of the problem with the wider public.

  He also provided several PoC document files that take advantage of the feature to perform actions like locking the users' Windows workstation and swaping their mouse button functions.

  "These documents are clean for all antivirus providers, and tested to pass Messagelabs, etc (other cloud based email security providers are available). I have also tested these documents on Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit and a leading behavioral endpoint product (under NDA so cannot name) — both fail to spot it," he claims.

  "Additionally, it is not flagged by Cuckoo Sandbox or Palo-Alto Wildfire sandbox. Through months of testing it has become clear that security solutions simply do not touch this issue."

  The OLE Packager cannot be disabled, he says. "If you have Microsoft EMET already deployed, add a rule for Excel, Winword (sic) and Powerpoint — it needs to be an ASR rule which denies packager.dll. Because you cannot control this on a document-by-document basis, you may break legitimate OLE Packager usage (e.g. embedding Excel documents in PowerPoint)," he advised.

  Beaumont notes that Microsoft has tried to mitigate the issue in the past by making warning messages popping up when users opened risky file types, but that it hasn't kept the list updated over the years. Also, he noted, the warning messages can be clicked through, and this is what most users usually do.

Submission + - Extreme Reduction Gearing Device Offers an Amazing Gear Ratio of 11 Million to 1 (3dprint.com)

Submitted by ErnieKey
ErnieKey writes: The 3D printed extreme reduction gearing device, created by long-time puzzle maker M. Oskar van Deventer, may leave you puzzled for its obvious applications, but the coaxial cranking mechanism offers potential in a variety of real-world applications with multi-colored gears that move in opposite directions at a ratio of 11,373,076 : 1. This 3D printed reduction gearing device is compact and multi-colored, and looks deceivingly simple at first glance. Developed through a complex algorithm, it could possibly offer potential as parts for machines like 3D printers, aerospace and automotive components, as well as perhaps robotics and a variety of motors.
United States

Japanese and US Piloted Robots To Brawl For National Pride 107

Posted by samzenpus from the robot-jox dept.
jfruh writes: Japan may have just lost the Women's World Cup to the U.S., but the country is hoping for a comeback in another competition: a battle between giant robots. Suidobashi Heavy Industry has agreed to a challenge from Boston-based MegaBots that would involve titanic armored robots developed by each startup, the first of its kind involving piloted machines that are roughly 4 meters tall. "We can't let another country win this," Kogoro Kurata, who is CEO of Suidobashi, said in a video posted to YouTube. "Giant robots are Japanese culture."
Transportation

Google's Waze Jumps Into the Ride-Sharing Business 90

Posted by Soulskill from the now-with-100%-less-profit dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Waze, the online mapping company owned by Google, is testing a ride-sharing service in Israel called RideWith. The service will allow commuters to pay drivers for rides to and from work. This is a hard limit — drivers can give no more than two rides per day. If the restriction remains after the initial test, it could be a simple way to avoid pseudo-professional drivers, and all the taxi-related legal problems that go with them (see: Uber). "RideWith calculates a cost based on the anticipated fuel consumption and 'depreciation' based on mileage, and the driver is free to accept or decline the ride accordingly." One can't help but speculate about future involvement with Google's autonomous car project.

Submission + - The battle between Washington and Silicon Valley over encryption (csmonitor.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The American business community worries a back door policy, if enacted, would threaten the competitiveness of their businesses. Many companies are already trying to estimate the high cost of dealing with any regulation that would mandate access to encryption — including potential losses in revenue and the tougher-to-measure consumer trust. As such, some are already contemplating how to find loopholes and other ways around any new US rules to build back doors, including by taking business overseas.

At a macro level, companies are concerned about the global implications if other countries seek their own channels to access customers’ data using the US policy as a precedent. How the most powerful government in the world decides to proceed on encryption will have a profound effect not just on development of consumer technologies but the rights of Internet users in the future, they say. And the encryption debate comes at a time when the US government and the American tech sector need each other more than ever as advanced computing and digital security become increasingly key for the country’s economy and national defense. The squabble over encryption, however, may end up standing in the way — and the principles each side decides to fight for could set the tone for the future of the Surveillance Age.
Google

YouTube Algorithm Can Decide Your Channel URL Now Belongs To Someone Else 272

Posted by timothy from the spartacus-gets-really-confusing dept.
An anonymous reader writes: In 2005, blogger Matthew Lush registered "Lush" as his account on the then-nascent YouTube service, receiving www.youtube.com/lush as the URL for his channel. He went on to use this address on his marketing materials and merchandise. Now, YouTube has taken the URL and reassigned it to the Lush cosmetics brand. Google states that an algorithm determined the URL should belong to the cosmetics firm rather than its current owner, and insists that it is not possible to reverse the unrequested change. Although Lush cosmetics has the option of changing away from their newly-received URL and thereby freeing it up for Mr. Lush's use, they state that they have not decided whether they will. Google has offered to pay for some of Mr. Lush's marketing expenses as compensation.
Microsoft

Microsoft Attempts To Clarify the Windows 10 For Everyone Rumor 96

Posted by samzenpus from the clear-as-mud dept.
Ammalgam writes: Over the weekend, Microsoft caused a web explosion by seeming to imply that they were going to relax their licensing rules and offer Windows 10 for free to everyone. This caused an uproar of controversy online that Microsoft had to address. The company issued a statement in an attempt to clarify the Windows 10 licensing situation. The language is still a little confusing so on Windows10update.com, Onuora Amobi tries to simplify the language and sort out the distinction between users on the Windows Insider Program and non Windows Insiders.

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