Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Idle

Submission + - Disney Wants a Drone Army

Submitted by Clark Schultz
Clark Schultz writes: Disney has applications in to the USPTO for patentscovering the potential use of drones at air shows. The company has its eyes on using the drones to propel floating projection screens and marionettes as part of a programmed show. The company filed for the patents through its Disney Enterprises Inc. subsidiary.

Submission + - Lockpickers Invent 3D-Printed Plastic Skeleton Key To Crack High Security Locks (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: In TV shows such as Prison Break, and movies throughout history, people have escaped prisons by making a mould of the necessary key by pressing it into a bar of soap, and then filling the mould with plastic from a melted toothbrush or some other fanciful, though non-believable, material.

But what if you could actually make a skeleton key out of plastic?

Jos Weyers and Christian Holler, competitive lock-pickers and security consultants, have found a way to use the traditional lock-picking technique of "bumping", where key blanks are "bumped" into the lock by tapping the end of the key with a hammer.

Even without the original key, the lockpickers have found a way to create a 3D model of a high-security key and print it onto a plastic key that works multiple times.

Submission + - Chrome 37 Launches With DirectWrite Support For Better-Looking Fonts On Windows

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today released Chrome version 37 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Among the changes are better-looking fonts on Windows and a revamped password manager; you can update to the latest release now using the browser’s built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome.

Submission + - gcc LTO reduces firefox package size by 50% (gnu.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Link Time Optimization used to be a lot of promise for little gain, and typically unable to deal with packages in the MSLOC range. Seemingly no longer. Reported in gcc's bugzilla is an impressive result for firefox:
'Firefox since version 30 as well as Thunderbird since version 31 both compile fine with LTO enabled without the need of any additional patches. The package size was reduced by 51% (firefox ~420MB -> ~207MB) and 59% (thunderbird ~480MB -> ~200MB). Both programs work as intended, no crashes or unexpected behaviour so far.'
Has time come to rebuild the world using LTO ?
Businesses

Amazon To Buy Twitch For $970 Million 61

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the about-that-previous-speculation... dept.
Dave Knott (2917251) writes Amazon has agreed to acquire the live game-streaming service Twitch for approximately $970 million in cash, a move that could help Amazon bolster its position in the fast-growing business of online gaming and give it technology to compete with video-streaming rivals Netflix and YouTube. The acquisition, which has been approved by Twitch's shareholders, is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Google had for some time been reported to have interest in acquiring Twitch, but those talks cooled in recent weeks. Google was unable to close the deal, said sources familiar with the talks, because it was concerned about potential antitrust issues that could have come with the acquisition.
The Internet

Net Neutrality Is 'Marxist,' According To a Koch-Backed Astroturf Group 531

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the toll-road-ahead dept.
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes American Commitment, a conservative group with strong ties to the Koch brothers has been bombarding inboxes with emails filled with disinformation and fearmongering in an attempt to start a "grassroots" campaign to kill net neutrality — at one point suggesting that "Marxists" think that preserving net neutrality is a good idea. American Commitment president Phil Kerpen suggests that reclassifying the internet as a public utility is the "first step in the fight to destroy American capitalism altogether" and says that the FCC is plotting a "federal Internet takeover," a move that "sounds more like a story coming out of China or Russia."

Submission + - LGOGDownloader is a Command Line Downloader for GOG

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Webupd8 reports about a rather cool tool for fans of Linux command line and GOG.com. LGOGDownloader allows you to download your games purchased from GOG straight from the CLI, lean and mean. Internally the software uses the same API as the official GUI downloader, which unfortunately is not yet available for Linux. LGOGDownloader can download GOG.com games (including language-specific installers if available), list and download updated files, resume unfinished downloads, repair downloaded installers, download extras such as artwork or manuals, and more. It carries the WTFPL license, which essentially means that the software is public domain.

Submission + - Steve Wozniak visits Israel, experiences rocket attack, "likes the action"... (jerusalemonline.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Steve Wozniak, Apple's co-founder visits Israel for an education conference, a topic which he says "had a profound impact on his life". He also visits the Israeli border town of Sderot, experiences a Hamas rocket attack, and says he likes to be "close to the action". There is also a 5 minute video interview.
Bitcoin

Early Bitcoin User Interviewed By Federal Officers 92

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the just-wasting-electricity-officer dept.
MrBingoBoingo (3481277) writes Recently a Bitcoin user reports being interviewed over their past use of a now defunct exchange service by agents from the FBI and Treasury Department. This encounter raises concerns that earlier Bitcoin users who entered the space inocuously and without ties to Dark Markets or The Silk Road might need to prepare for Law Enforcement questioning about their early Bitcoin related activities.
Networking

Predictive Modeling To Increase Responsivity of Streamed Games 120

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the so-predictable dept.
jones_supa (887896) writes Streaming game services always bump up against a hard latency limit based on the total round-trip time it takes to send user input to a remote server and receive a frame of game data from that server. To alleviate the situation, Microsoft Research has been developing a system called DeLorean (whitepaper) using predictive modeling to improve the experienced responsiveness of a game. By analyzing previous inputs in a Markov chain, DeLorean tries to predict the most likely choices for the user's next input and then generates speculative frames that fit those inputs and sends them back to the user. The caveat is that sending those extra predictive frames and information does add a bandwidth overhead of anywhere from 1.5 to 4 times that of a normal streaming game client. During testing the benefits were apparent, though. Even when the actual round-trip time between input and server response was 256 ms, double-blind testers reported both the gameplay responsiveness and graphical quality of the DeLorean system were comparable to a locally played version of the game.
Science

Why Do Humans Grow Up So Slowly? Blame the Brain 128

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the brains-considered-harmful dept.
sciencehabit (1205606) writes Humans are late bloomers when compared with other primates — they spend almost twice as long in childhood and adolescence as chimps, gibbons, or macaques do. But why? One widely accepted but hard-to-test theory is that children's brains consume so much energy that they divert glucose from the rest of the body, slowing growth. Now, a clever study of glucose uptake and body growth in children confirms this 'expensive tissue' hypothesis.
Privacy

850 Billion NSA Surveillance Records Searchable By Domestic Law Enforcement 207

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the you're-a-criminal dept.
onproton (3434437) writes The Intercept reported today on classified documents revealing that the NSA has built its own "Google-like" search engine to provide over 850 billion collected records directly to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the DEA. Reporter Ryan Gallagher explains, "The documents provide the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies." The search engine, called ICREACH, allows analysts to search an array of databases, some of which contain metadata collected on innocent American citizens, for the purposes of "foreign intelligence." However, questions have been raised over its potential for abuse in what is known as "parallel construction," a process in which agencies use surveillance resources in domestic investigations, and then later cover it up by creating a different evidence trail to use in court.
Science

How To Read a Microbiome Study Like a Scientist 53

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the dang-scientists-ruining-headlines dept.
bmahersciwriter (2955569) writes Scientific reports have increasingly linked the bacteria in your gut to health and maladies, often making wild-sounding claims. Did you hear about the mice who were given fecal transplants from skinny humans and totally got skinny! Well, some of the more gut-busting results might not be as solid as they seem. Epidemiologist Bill Hanage offers five critical questions to ask when confronted by the latest microbiome research.
Censorship

Google Receives Takedown Request Every 8 Milliseconds 155

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the can-we-just-fix-copyright-already dept.
Via TorrentFreak comes news that Google is now being asked to remove one million links per day (or an average of one takedown notice every 8ms). In 2008, they received one takedown request approximately every six days. From the article: The massive surge in removal requests is not without controversy. It’s been reported that some notices reference pages that contain no copyrighted material, due to mistakes or abuse, but are deleted nonetheless. Google has a pretty good track record of catching these errors, but since manual review of all links is unachievable, some URLs are removed in error. ... The issue has also piqued the interest of U.S. lawmakers. Earlier this year the House Judiciary Subcommittee had a hearing on the DMCA takedown issue, and both copyright holders, Internet service providers, and other parties are examining what they can do to optimize the process. In the meantime, the number of removal requests is expected to rise and rise, with 10 million links per week being the next milestone.

Slashdot Top Deals

The speed of anything depends on the flow of everything.

Close