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Submission + - Hyperloop Construction Starts Next Year With the First Full-Scale Track (wired.com)

Submitted by neanderslob
neanderslob writes: Hyperloop Transportation Technologies plans to start construction on an actual hyperloop next year. The idea is to build this to serve the proposed Quay Valley (A 150K resident solar power city in Kings County California, developed by Kings County Ventures). The project will be paid for with $100 million that Hyperloop Transportation Technologies expects to raise through a direct public offering in the third quarter of this year. The track itself will be a 5 mile loop and won't reach anywhere close to the 800mph that Musk proposed in his white paper but it's a good start!

Submission + - First Evidence of Clathrate Gun Opening Salvo (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Sardaukar86
Sardaukar86 writes: The Siberian crater saga is more widespread — and scarier — than anyone thought.
In the middle of last summer came news of a bizarre occurrence no one could explain. Seemingly out of nowhere, a massive crater appeared in one of the planet’s most inhospitable lands. Early estimates said the crater, nestled in a land called “the ends of the Earth” where temperatures can sink far below zero, yawned nearly 100 feet in diameter.
The saga deepened. The Siberian crater wasn’t alone. There were two more, ratcheting up the tension in a drama that hit its climax as a probable explanation surfaced. Global warming had thawed the permafrost, which had caused methane trapped inside the icy ground to explode. “Gas pressure increased until it was high enough to push away the overlaying layers in a powerful injection, forming the crater,” one German scientist said at the time.

Submission + - UNDER U.S. PRESSURE, PAYPAL NUKES MEGA FOR ENCRYPTING FILES (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by seoras
seoras writes: After coming under intense pressure PayPal has closed the account of cloud-storage service Mega. According to the company, SOPA proponent Senator Patrick Leahy personally pressured Visa and Mastercard who in turn called on PayPal to terminate the account. Bizarrely, Mega's encryption is being cited as a key problem.... ... What makes the situation more unusual is that PayPal reportedly apologized to Mega for its withdrawal while acknowledging that company’s business is indeed legitimate.
However, PayPal also advised that Mega’s unique selling point – it’s end-to-end-encryption – was a key concern for the processor."

Submission + - NSA Spying Wins Another Rubber Stamp (nationaljournal.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The FISA court has again renewed an order allowing the NSA to continue its illegal bulk collection of Americans' phone records, at least until June 1 when it is set to expire in Congress. President Obama pledged to end the controversial program more than a year ago.

The extension is the fifth of its kind since Obama said he would effectively end the Snowden-exposed program as it currently exists during a major policy speech in January 2014. Obama and senior administration officials have repeatedly insisted that they will not act alone to end the program without Congress.

After all the other things he's done against or without congressional approval and he balks at this one?

Submission + - Google Taking Over New TLDs (sealedabstract.com)

Submitted by bobo the hobo
bobo the hobo writes: In the corner of the internet where people care about DNS, there is a bit of an uproar at Google's application for over a hundred new top-level domains, including .dev, .lol, .app, .blog, .cloud and .search. Their application includes statements such as:
By contrast, our application for the .blog TLD describes a new way of automatically linking new second level domains to blogs on our Blogger platform – this approach eliminates the need for any technical configuration on the part of the user and thus makes the domain name more user friendly.

And also limiting usage of .dev to Google only:
Second-level domain names within the proposed gTLD are intended for registration and use by Google only, and domain names under the new gTLD will not be available to the general public for purchase, sale, or registration. As such, Charleston Road Registry intends to apply for an exemption to the ICANN Registry Operator Code of Conduct as Google is intended to be the sole registrar and registrant.

Submission + - Verizon Posts Message in Morse Code to Mock FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Chris Matyszczyk reports at Cnet that Verizon has posted a message to the FCC titled: FCC’s ‘Throwback Thursday’ Move Imposes 1930s Rules on the Internet” written in Morse code. The first line of the release dated February 26, 1934 in old typewriter type reads: "Today (Feb.26) the Federal Communications Commission approved an order urged by President Obama that imposes rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph." The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines in favor of new Internet service rules that prohibit blocking, slowing or prioritizing traffic. The rules, which have not yet been released, are opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth and stifle payback on network investment. "It isn't a surprise that Verizon is a touch against Thursday's order. In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right," writes Matyszczyk. "I wonder, though, who will be attracted by this open mockery. Might this be a sign that Verizon doesn't think the fight is over at all?"

Comment Quick Update (Score 4, Informative) 86

by Soulskill (#49149149) Attached to: The Only Constant is Change

We've just rolled out several bug fixes.

  • The Post button (and similar) should no longer be hidden.
  • The Older/Newer buttons on the front page should be back.
  • Tags should now be visible.
  • The left-hand navigation on user pages should be back.
  • We've fixed some of the responsiveness issues with the new header (more to do yet).
  • Contrast on Slashbox titles should be fixed.

We still have more to fix, and we're going to get started on that.

Submission + - Blu-Ray Players Hackable via Malicious Discs

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Blu-Ray disc interactive features use Java and Stephen Tomkinson just posted a blog discussing research showing how using a specially created Blu-Ray discs it is possible to hack a couple of players. He hacked one Linux based network connected player to get root due to issues introduced by the vendor. Similarly he did the same thing against Windows Blu-Ray player software. He then combined both along with detection techniques into one disc..

Submission + - One Astronomer's Impassioned Quest to Reinstate Pluto as a Planet (vice.com)

Submitted by sarahnaomi
sarahnaomi writes: Most of us grew up believing that tiny, distant Pluto was the outermost planet in our solar system. Then, one day, the scientific powers that be decreed that it wasn’t. But it seems the matter is far from settled.

“The International Astronomical Union of wants to hide from the issue,” David Weintraub of Vanderbilt University told me in an email. “They have refused to allow the issue to appear on the agenda at the 2009 or 2012 or 2015 meetings. They hope it will go away.”

Weintraub—who describes Pluto’s exile as a stunt organized by a “very small clique of Pluto-haters”—would have the dwarf world rejoin the ranks of our Solar System’s fully-fledged planets today. But solid evidence that Pluto deserves the title may come in July, when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft slingshots around the icy rock and sends us back a detailed picture of its composition.

Pluto’s planethood was revoked by majority vote on the final day of the 2006 IAU conference. Over 2,500 astronomers attended the meeting throughout the week, but only 394 votes ultimately decided Pluto’s fate: 237 in favor of demoting the planet and 157 against.

Submission + - Lenovo says goodbye to bloatware (betanews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Lenovo today announced that it has had enough of bloatware. The world's largest PC vendor says that by the time Windows 10 comes out, it will get rid of bloatware from its computer lineups. The announcement comes a week after the company was caught for shipping Superfish adware with its computers. The Chinese PC manufacturer has since released a public apology, Superfish removal tool, and instructions to help out users.

At the sidelines, the company also announced that it is giving away 6-month free subscription to all Superfish-affected users.

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