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Submission + - NASA: Dead star 10 million times brighter than sun (hlntv.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Astronomers have found the brightest pulsar ever recorded, the 'Mighty Mouse' of stars.

NASA announced this week that its astronomers have discovered the brightest pulsar ever recorded.

The star, captured by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is located in the center of the Messier 82 galaxy, which is about 12 million light-years from the milky way.

Because of its brightness and size, the star has some interesting characteristics. "It has all the power of a black hole, but with much less mass," Fiona Harrison, the NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, said in a press release.

Submission + - Google hires camel for desert Street View (cnn.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: t's given us robot cars and internet-enabled glasses — but when it came to creating a "Street View" of a desert, Google hit on a low-tech solution.

It hired a camel.

The beast has become the first animal to carry Google's Trekker camera, which is typically hoisted by humans to capture 360-degree images of destinations inaccessible to its Street View cars.

Google spokeswoman Monica Baz says the camel, reportedly named Raffia, was an apt way of documenting the beautiful shifting sands of Abu Dhabi's Liwa Oasis.

"With every environment and every location, we try to customize the capture and how we do it for that part of the environment," she told The National newspaper.

"In the case of Liwa we fashioned it in a way so that it goes on a camel so that it can capture imagery in the best, most authentic and least damaging way," Baz said.

The Liwa Oasis is a 100 kilometer-wide (62-mile) scenic desert, southeast of the city of Abu Dhabi that includes some of the world's biggest sand dunes.

Submission + - Ads to Invade Shapchat Soon, CEO Confirms (pcmag.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Since its inception, Shapchat has been free of advertisements. But like it or not, that's about to change.
Speaking at a San Francisco conference on Wednesday, the startup's 24-year-old cofounder and chief executive Evan Spiegel said that ads are imminent. The ads will show up in the Snapchat Stories feature, in between photos and videos users have shared, The Wall Street Journal reported. At this point, they will not be targeted to users based on their interests.

Spiegel suggested that the ads won't be too disruptive to users.

"They're not fancy. You just look at it if you want to look at it, and you don't if you don't," Spiegel said at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, according to the Journal.

This will be the first source of revenue for Snapchat, which launched three years ago and was recently valued at $10 billion by investors. Users might not be thrilled with the idea of ads, but they could mean money in the bank for Snapchat and allow it to demonstrate its value to investors.

Submission + - Twitter sues U.S. government over national security data (cnn.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Twitter is suing the U.S. government in an effort to loosen restrictions on what the social media giant can say publicly about the national security-related requests it receives for user data.

The company filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department on Monday in a federal court in northern California, arguing that its First Amendment rights are being violated by restrictions that forbid the disclosure of how many national security letters and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court orders it receives — even if that number is zero.

Twitter said in a statement that it's suing in an effort to publish the full version of a "transparency report" prepared this year that includes those details. The San Francisco-based firm was unsatisfied with the Justice Department's move in January to allow technological firms to disclose the number of national security-related requests they receive in broad ranges.

"It's our belief that we are entitled under the First Amendment to respond to our users' concerns and to the statements of U.S. government officials by providing information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance — including what types of legal process have not been received," the company said. "We should be free to do this in a meaningful way, rather than in broad, inexact ranges."

Submission + - Malware program targets Hong Kong protesters using Apple devices (pcworld.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: A malware program that targets Hong Kong activists using Apple devices has trademarks of being developed by a nation-state, possibly China, according to a security company.

Lacoon Mobile Security of San Francisco wrote on its blog on Tuesday that the malware, called Xsser mRAT, is the “first and most advanced, fully operational Chinese iOS trojan found to date.”

The Apple malware is related to a malicious Android one found last month that advertised itself as a way for activists to coordinate protests, Lacoon wrote.

Hong Kong has seen massive demonstrations after China moved to only allow candidates it approves to run in the election of the territory’s chief executive in 2017. Activists charge China reneged on a promise of an election without restrictions.

It’s not usual to see malware emerge that has been customized to capitalize on current events, and security experts have long documented programs suspected to have been created to monitor dissidents and activists.

Xsser mRAT can steal SMS messages, call logs, location data, photos, address books, data from the Chinese messaging application Tencent and passwords from the iOS keychain, Lacoon wrote.

“Although it shows initial signs of being a targeted attack on Chinese protesters, the full extent of how Xsser mRAT is being used is anyone’s guess,” the company wrote. “It can cross borders easily, and is possibly being operated by a Chinese-speaking entity to spy on individuals, foreign companies or even entire governments.”

Submission + - The UPS Store will 3-D print stuff for you (cnn.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: UPS (UPS) announced plans Monday to bring in-store 3-D-printing services to nearly 100 stores across the country, billing itself as the first national retailer to do so.

With the UPS system, customers can submit their own designs for objects like product prototypes, engineering parts and architectural models that are then printed on a professional-quality 3-D printer made by Stratasys.

Prices vary depending on the complexity of the object; an iPhone case would be about $60, while a replica femur bone would be around $325. UPS can also connect customers with outside professionals who charge an hourly rate to help produce a design file for the printer.

It generally takes about four or five hours to print a simple object, with more complex items taking a day or more.

The program started as a pilot at six locations last year, and UPS says those stores "saw demand for 3-D print continuing to increase across a broad spectrum of customers."

Submission + - FAA bars drone from delivering game ball to college football matchup (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Michigan University's stadium seats 110,000 and was declared a no-fly zone.

The Federal Aviation Administration has blocked plans for a small drone to deliver the game football for the University of Michigan kickoff Saturday against the University of Utah before a crowd of about 110,000 fans.

The FAA's move is the latest example of flight regulators blocking the use of small drones for commercial purposes, despite the questionable legal authority for them to do so. The drone, built by Ann Arbor-based SkySpecs, was supposed to participate in a pre-game program of the American football game to celebrate the University of Michigan's 100-year anniversary of its aerospace-engineering program.

Hobbyists may fly the small drones under guidelines adopted by the agency, and they must be flown away from crowds. Both Google and Amazon are testing drone-delivery programs for commercial purposes, but federal law bans those business models for now.

The FAA has maintained since at least 2007 that the commercial operation of drones is illegal. A federal judge ruled in March, however, that the FAA enacted the regulations illegally because it did not take public input before adopting the rules, which is a violation of federal law. Flight regulators have appealed the decision, maintaining that commercial applications are still barred.

Submission + - Supermassive Black Hole Discovered Inside Tiny Dwarf Galaxy (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Astronomers using data from the Hubble Space Telescope say they've discovered a ginormous black hole within one of the tiniest galaxies known to exist.

The supermassive black hole is about five times more massive than the one at the center of the Milky Way, but the dwarf galaxy in which it was found--known to astronomers as M60-UCD1--is about 500 times smaller than our own galaxy, according to NASA.

"It is the smallest and lightest object that we know of that has a supermassive black hole," Dr. Anil C. Seth, a University of Utah astronomer and the lead author of a new paper about the discovery, said in a written statement. "It's also one of the most black hole-dominated galaxies known."

The discovery suggests that supermassive black holes may be twice as numerous in the nearby universe as previously thought, Nature reported.

Submission + - ISIS bans Math, Social Studies, Physics for children (cnn.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: In swaths of Syria now controlled by ISIS, children can no longer study math or social studies. Sports are out of the question. And students will be banned from learning about elections and democracy.

Instead, they'll be subjected to the teachings of the radical Islamist group. And any teacher who dares to break the rules "will be punished."
ISIS revealed its new educational demands in fliers posted on billboards and on street poles. The Sunni militant group has captured a slew of Syrian and Iraqi cities in recent months as it tries to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, spanning Sunni parts of both countries.

Books cannot include any reference to evolution. And teachers must say that the laws of physics and chemistry "are due to Allah's rules and laws."

Submission + - Apple Locks iPhone 6/6+ NFC to Apple Pay Only (cnet.com)

Submitted by Ronin Developer
Ronin Developer writes: From the article:
"At last week's Apple event, the company announced Apple Pay — a new mobile payments service that utilises NFC technology in conjunction with its Touch ID fingerprint scanner for secure payments that can be made from the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus or Apple Watch.

Apple also announced a number of retailers that would accept Apple Pay for mobile payments at launch.

However, Cult of Mac reports that NFC will be locked to the Apple Pay platform, meaning the technology will not be available for other uses.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed the lock down of the technology, saying developers would be restricted from utilising its NFC chip functionality for at least a year. Apple declined to comment on whether NFC capability would remain off limits beyond that period."

So, it would appear, for at least a year, that Apple doesn't want competing mobile payment options to be available on the newly released iPhone 6 and 6+. While it's understandable that they want to promote their payment scheme and achieve a critical mass for Apple Pay, it's a strategy that may very well backfire as other other mobile payment vendors gain strength on competing platforms. Subway already has penned a deal with Softcard to accept their mobile payment exclusively. Will other retailers take a similar tact and lock out Apple users who can't use their newly minted iPhone 6's for mobile payments everywhere because of this decision?

Submission + - Boeing, Space X to get NASA contracts (cnn.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Boeing and SpaceX will be awarded NASA contracts to transport astronauts to and from the international space station, CNN has learned.
The space agency will hold a news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4 p.m. ET to discuss "the return of human spaceflight launches to the United States," according to a brief statement on its website.

Since the shuttle program was retired, NASA crewmembers have been hitching rides on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, at a cost of $70 million per seat, according to a NASA spokeswoman. The agency typically purchases six seats per year.

Submission + - German judge lifts temporary ban on Uber ride-sharing (reuters.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: FRANKFURT, Sept 16 (Reuters) — A Frankfurt judge granted a reprieve to Uber, the online transportation service, setting aside a temporary injunction issued two weeks ago against the Silicon Valley company from operating a novel car-sharing service across Germany.

Frankfurt Regional Court Judge Frowin Kurth said on Tuesday that the issues in the case brought against Uber by German taxi operator group Taxi Deutschland deserved a fuller airing in court, but lacked the urgency for a temporary injunction.

"There could still be grounds for an injunction" against Uber, Kurth said in deciding on the company's appeal of the court's original decision. "But during our deliberations it became clear there were no grounds for an immediate injunction."

The lawsuit, which pits taxi operators against the fast-growing U.S. start-up recently valued at around $18 billion, has underscored Germany's mounting unease over the impact of digital technology on established businesses and institutions.

Taxi Deutschland had sought the injunction as part of a civil lawsuit to bar the company's ride-sharing service, citing what it saw as unfair competition by Uber against the professional taxi drivers whom it represents.

The original injunction barred Uber from using its Uberpop mobile phone app to connect ride-sharing drivers to potential passengers, ruling that Uber's network of volunteer drivers lacked the commercial licences to charge passengers for rides.

Each infraction of the court's injunction carried fines of up to 250,000 euros ($323,775). Uber quickly appealed the ruling, leading to Tuesday's hearing.

Submission + - NASA to announce private space shuttle deal (cnn.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: NASA will make a "major announcement" later Tuesday about its plans to partner with the private sector to transport astronauts to the international space station.
The space agency said it will hold a news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4 p.m. ET to discuss "the return of human spaceflight launches to the United States," according to a brief statement on its website.

The agency is expected to award a contract to one or more private aerospace companies to shuttle astronauts back and forth to the space station.

The contract to be announced Tuesday will be difficult to compare with the current arrangement, since it will involve "additional capabilities," such as development and certification programs, as well as shuttle services, the spokeswoman said.

The leading contender is Boeing (BA), according to the Wall Street Journal. Other bidders include SpaceX, which is backed by Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, and Sierra Nevada Corp.

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