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Earth

Ancient Bird With Largest Wingspan Yet Discovered 55

Posted by samzenpus from the we're-going-to-need-more-seed dept.
sciencehabit writes Fossils unearthed at a construction project in South Carolina belong to a bird with the largest wingspan ever known, according to a new study. The animal measured 6.4 meters from wingtip to wingtip, about the length of a 10-passenger limousine and approaching twice the size of the wandering albatross, today's wingspan record-holder. Like modern-day albatrosses, the newly described species would have been a soaring champ.
Transportation

Airbus Patents Windowless Cockpit That Would Increase Pilots' Field of View 468

Posted by samzenpus from the looking-at-the-screen dept.
Zothecula writes Imagine showing up at the airport to catch your flight, looking at your plane, and noticing that instead of windows, the cockpit is now a smooth cone of aluminum. It may seem like the worst case of quality control in history, but Airbus argues that this could be the airliner of the future. In a new US patent application, the EU aircraft consortium outlines a new cockpit design that replaces the traditional cockpit with one that uses 3D view screens instead of conventional windows.
Transportation

Unintended Consequences For Traffic Safety Feature 579

Posted by Soulskill from the airbag-inflates-with-pure-mercury dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Traffic engineers had a problem to solve: too many pedestrians were getting hit by cars while using the crosswalks at intersections because they didn't know when the 'WALK' sign would change. Their solution was simple: implement a countdown timer. Countless cities have now adopted these timers, but it turns out to have an undesired consequence: motor vehicle crashes are actually increasing at intersections where the countdown timer is used. Researchers think this is because pedestrians aren't the only ones who see the timers. Drivers see them too, and it provides them with information on when the light will change. Then they anticipate the change by either speeding up to beat a change to red light, or anticipating a green light in order to get through before the pedestrians can move into the road. The researchers suggest finding some way to hide the countdown from the drivers, perhaps through the use of an audio countdown that would be difficult to hear from inside a car.
Government

Massachusetts SWAT Teams Claim They're Private Corporations, Immune To Oversight 534

Posted by Soulskill from the you-can-trust-us dept.
New submitter thermowax sends a report on how Massachusetts SWAT teams are dodging open records requests by claiming to be corporations. From the article: As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. ... Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it's here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they're private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they're immune from open records requests. Let's be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they've incorporated, they're immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state's residents aren't permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they're used for, what sort of training they get or who they're primarily used against.
Stats

Google Fit To Curate Steps, Calories, Heart Rate, Other Biometric Data 53

Posted by timothy from the makes-me-go-all-pitter-patter dept.
mpicpp (3454017) writes "Google is planning to release a new product called Google Fit that will aggregate health data from various devices and apps, according to a report Thursday from Forbes. Fit will use available APIs to pull biometric information together into one place, but it's unclear whether it will be a standalone app or part of the Android OS. Reports of Fit come on the heels of Apple's announcement of HealthKit in iOS 8, a system that also interacts with apps and APIs to curate and present health data like steps walked, calories consumed, and heart rates logged. Fit also follows the announcement of Sami, Samsung's health platform for culling health-related info."

Comment Re:A (hidden) communication channel is not an atta (Score 2) 121

by RevWaldo (#47222147) Attached to: The Computer Security Threat From Ultrasonic Networks
I was wondering how this speed compared to a telegraph operator sending Morse Code. Googling about, words per minute, based on the standard five characters per word plus spaces and punctuation, works out to about bps * 1.2.

http://superuser.com/questions...

So 20 bps is about 24 words per minute. Compare this to a skilled telegraph operator, who can manage 40 wpm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

So yeah, it's slow, BUT for keylogging it couldn't keep up only if users typed constantly, which they don't. Plenty of time in between to do some catch up.

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Comment Emperor Walmartine and Amazon Skywalker (Score 1) 210

by RevWaldo (#47217147) Attached to: Amazon Dispute Now Making Movies Harder To Order
Yesss...yesss...feel the power of the Dark Side flowing through you...hate those who would defy you...squeeze your suppliers, force them to cut costs, wages and benefits in order to remain profitable. Make them in turn go to even cheaper sources for low-quality parts and materials. Soon you will join me by my side and together we will rule both retail and online and crush any so-called worldwide labor movement!

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