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Intel

Intel Adopts USB-C Connector For 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3, Supports USB 3.1, DP 1.2 179

Posted by timothy from the ok-that's-pretty-cool dept.
MojoKid writes: The high speed Thunderbolt interface standard, which is used for everything from hyper-fast external storage solutions to external graphics cards, has been slow to take off. You can blame the high-priced Thunderbolt peripherals and the uber-expensive cables (at least when compared to your garden-variety USB cables). For most people, USB 3.0 is "good enough" and making a huge investment into the Thunderbolt ecosystem has been reserved for those in the professional video editing arena. However, Intel is looking to change all of that with Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 once again doubles the maximum bandwidth, this time jumping from 20Gbps to a whopping 40Gbps. While that is impressive in its own right, the truly big news is that Thunderbolt 3 is moving away from the Mini DisplayPort connector and is instead adopting the USB-C connector. As a result Thunderbolt will also support USB 3.1 (which is currently spec'd at 10Gbps) and can optionally provide up to 100W of power (in compliance with the USB Power Delivery spec) to charge devices via USB-C (like the recently introduced 12-inch Apple MacBook).

Submission + - The FBI Has Its Own Surveillance Air Force (newsweek.com)

Submitted by CambodiaSam
CambodiaSam writes: The FBI is operating a “small air force” of planes equipped with video and cellphone surveillance technology (known as stingrays), according to a report released Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Submission + - Move-in day for the DRC Finals - imagine packing up your entire lab! (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Imagine having to pack up your entire robotics laboratory and ship it across the country, or even the ocean. The 25 teams participating in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) had to do just that, and they are right now arriving at the competition grounds in Ponoma California to unpack and set up for this premiere international robotics, which runs June 5-6 and which will demonstrate the state of the art in disaster response humanoid robotics. The logistics of moving that much equipment and staff is enormous. And just think of the paper work at US customs! I hope DARPA debriefed the local border agents ...

Submission + - Professional Russian Trolling Exposed (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today the New York Times published a stunning exposé revealing the strategies used by one of the Web's greatest enemies: professional, government-backed "internet trolls." These well-paid agent provocateurs are dedicated to destroying the value of the Internet as an organizing and political tool.
Power

Mercedes-Benz Copies Tesla, Plans To Offer Home Energy Storage 116

Posted by timothy from the germans-sure-know-their-zeitgeist dept.
cartechboy writes: It's like a game of follow the leader. First, Tesla announced its Powerwall Batteries, and now Mercedes-Benz plans to follow suit by entering the energy-storage business as well. A division of parent company Daimler has been testing battery packs that can power houses, and plans to launch commercially in September. Supposedly a battery pack for "light industrial, commercial, and private" use is being tested with sizes ranging from 2.5 kWh to 5.9 kWh. While Tesla's building a massive Gigafactory to make all its batteries for its Powerwall and electric cars, it's unclear exactly how Daimler plans to produce its batteries in a larger-scale energy-storage operation.

Submission + - ULA to trim management by 30%

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In order to make itself more efficient and competitive, ULA has decided to cut its management by 30%.

ULA CEO Tory Bruno has said ULA must shrink to remain successful under reduced U.S. military budgets and with Elon Musk’s SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) being certified to compete against ULA for national security mission launches. “To achieve that transformation, we are reducing the number of executive positions by 30 percent and offered a voluntary layoff for those interested on the executive leadership team,” said ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye. “It is important for ULA to move forward early in the process with our leadership selections to ensure a seamless transition and our continued focus on mission success.”

This news should be looked at in the context of a proposed Senate bill that requires the Air Force to significantly cut funding to ULA.

Not only would the bill cut an annual $1 billion payment from the Air Force to ULA, it would put severe restrictions on the number of Russian engines ULA could use in its Atlas 5, which in turn will limit the number of launches the Air Force can buy from the company.

Submission + - Amazon: Build Us a Better Warehouse Robot (dice.com)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Amazon relies quite a bit on human labor, most notably in its warehouses. The company wants to change that via machine learning and robotics, which is why earlier this year it invited 30 teams to a “Picking Contest.” In order to win the contest, a team needed to build a robot that can outpace other robots in detecting and identifying an object on a shelf, gripping said object without breaking it, and delivering it into a waiting receptacle. According to Engadget, Team RBO, composed of researchers from the Technical University of Berlin, won last month’s competition by a healthy margin. Their winning design combined a WAM arm (complete with a suction cup for lifting objects) and an XR4000 mobile base into a single unit capable of picking up 12 objects in 20 minutes—not exactly blinding speed, but enough to demonstrate significant promise. If Amazon’s contest demonstrated anything, it’s that it could be quite a long time before robots are capable of identifying and sorting through objects at speeds even remotely approaching human (and thus taking over those jobs). Chances seem good that Amazon will ask future teams to build machines that are even smarter and faster.

Submission + - NASA tries to solve the problem of bug guts sticking to aircraft wings (geek.com)

Submitted by mthwgk
mthwgk writes: While NASA may regularly carry out groundbreaking research, not all of it is something you’d want to go home and boast about. This week a team of engineers from NASA’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project are working on just such a project, specifically: how to stop the guts of thousands of bugs building up on the leading edge of wings?

Submission + - Mercedes-Benz Copies Tesla, Plans To Offer Home Energy Storage

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: It's like a game of follow the leader. First, Tesla announced its Powerwall Batteries, and now Mercedes-Benz plans to follow suit by entering the energy-storage business as well. A division of parent company Daimler has been testing battery packs that can power houses, and plans to launch commercially in September. Supposedly a battery pack for "light industrial, commercial, and private" use is being tested with sizes ranging from 2.5 kWh to 5.9 kWh. While Tesla's building a massive Gigafactory to make all its batteries for its Powerwall and electric cars, it's unclear exactly how Daimler plans to produce its batteries in a larger-scale energy-storage operation. Will Daimler build a battery factory of its own, or is this a ploy to steal some headlines from Tesla while the topic is hot?

Submission + - GameStop swoops in to buy ThinkGeek for $140 million (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Lirodon
Lirodon writes: Remember a few days ago, when our former parent company was the subject of a $122 million takeover bid by Hot Topic? Slashdot remembers. Well, another geeky retailer entered the fray in the battle for ThinkGeek, and won. GameStop will be acquiring Geeknet for $140 million. The video game retailer has promised synergies, such as in-store pickup and integration with its rewards program.

Submission + - LG arbitrarily denying Android Lollipop update to the G2 in Canada?

Submitted by Lirodon
Lirodon writes: Its funky rear-mounted buttons may have left critics divided, but the LG G2 is still a pretty capable Android device. While it has gotten an update to Android 5.0 "Lollipop" in some major markets (including the United States, of course), one major holdout is Canada. Reports are surfacing that LG's Canadian subsidiary has decided not to release the update for unknown reasons.

But, what about custom ROMs? Well, they handled that too: they have refused to release Lollipop kernel source for the Canadian variant of the device. It is arbitrary actions like this that cause Android's fragmentation problems. A curious note, LG has not specifically made reference to the bugs other users have been having with the update.
Android

LG Arbitrarily Denying Android Lollipop Update To the G2 In Canada? 131

Posted by timothy from the arbitrary-lines dept.
Lirodon writes: Its funky rear-mounted buttons may have left critics divided, but the LG G2 is still a pretty capable Android device. While it has gotten an update to Android 5.0 "Lollipop" in some major markets (including the United States, of course), one major holdout is Canada. Reports are surfacing that LG's Canadian subsidiary has decided not to release the update for unknown reasons. But, what about custom ROMs? Well, they handled that too: they have refused to release Lollipop kernel source for the Canadian variant of the device. It is arbitrary actions like this that cause Android's fragmentation problems. A curious note, LG has not specifically made reference to the bugs other users have been having with the update.

Submission + - Intel Adopts USB-C Connector For 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3, Supports USB 3.1, DP 1.2 (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: The high speed Thunderbolt intereface standard, which is used for everything from hyper-fast external storage solutions to external graphics cards, has been slow to take off. You can blame the high-priced Thunderbolt peripherals and the uber-expensive cables (at last when compared to your garden variety USB cables).For most people, USB 3.0 is "good enough" and making a huge investment into the Thunderbolt ecosystem has been reserved for those in the professional video editing arena. However, Intel is looking to change all of that with Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 once again doubles the maximum bandwidth, this time jumping from 20Gbps to a whopping 40Gbps. While that is impressive in its own right, the truly big news is that Thunderbolt 3 is moving away from the Mini DisplayPort connector and is instead adopting the USB-C connector. As a result Thunderbolt will also support USB 3.1 (which is currently spec'd at 10Gbps) and can optionally provide up to 100W of power (in compliance with the USB Power Delivery spec) to charge devices via USB-C (like the recently introduced 12-inch Apple MacBook).

Feed Google News Sci Tech: USB-C has already won - The Verge (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

Hot Hardware
USB-C has already won
The Verge
As it likes to do, Apple recently released a product before the world was ready. The new 12-inch MacBook has but a single port — unless you count the headphone jack — and it's a completely new connector that almost no one has ever used before, breaking...
Intel Announces Thunderbolt 3 With 40Gbps Bandwidth, USB Type-C ConnectorNDTV
New Thunderbolt USB is reversible and twice as fastIrish Examiner
Intel Announces Thunderbolt 3 With USB-C, Single-Cable Support for Dual 4K ... Mac Rumors
Computerworld-TechCrunch
all 63 news articles

Submission + - The Bizarre Process We Use for Approving Exemptions to the DMCA (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act imposes severe penalties on those who overcome copy-protection technologies. It allows for exemptions for a variety of purposes--but in a weird proviso, those exemptions must be re-approved by the Librarian of Congress every three years. Over at Fast Company, Glenn Fleishman takes a look at this broken system and why it's so bad for our rights as consumers.

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