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Submission + - Pentago is a first player win (perfect-pentago.net)

Submitted by jwpeterson
jwpeterson writes: Like chess and go, pentago is a two player, deterministic, perfect knowledge, zero sum game: there is no random or hidden state, and the goal of the two players is to make the other player lose (or at least tie). Unlike chess and go, pentago is small enough for a computer to play perfectly: with symmetries removed, there are a mere 3,009,081,623,421,558 (3e15) possible positions. Thus, with the help of several hours on 98304 threads of Edison, a Cray supercomputer at NERSC, pentago is now strongly solved. "Strongly" means that perfect play is efficiently computable for any position. For example, the first player wins.

Submission + - Google Rumored to be Pulling its Team From the DARPA Robotics Challenge (popsci.com)

Submitted by malachiorion
malachiorion writes: According to a participant in the DARPA Robotics Challenge, Google is withdrawing Team SCHAFT. This is the only story I've written based on a source who has requested anonymity, but it makes perfect sense. None of the roboticists I've talked to for related pieces have seen it as even remotely good business for Google to be a defense contractor, and this decision, if it plays out as described, might just calm the internet's jokey, jangled nerves for a while.

Submission + - When the Project Manager Is the Problem

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Project managers need to be great traffic cops, coordinators, and problem solvers. When they do their jobs right, they make everyone around them more effective. But when they’re bad — ouch. They can become the worst sort of bottleneck, and inspiration for a lot of heavy drinking.

The question is: How can you tell that the source of the problem is the project manager rather than the situation in which an otherwise-good project manager finds herself? And even when it's obvious, what can you do about it? In The Cure After Diagnosing a Bad Project Manager, Tim Walker helps you identify when it’s the project manager who’s the problem as well as causes and some useful, non-career-limiting solutions. ("Copy out, then copy up" might have been useful to me in one poopstorm.)

Got suggestions to add to his list?

Submission + - The final confessions of a Silk Road kingpin (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Daily Dot has an extensive interview with Steven Sadler, aka Nod, one of the most popular cocaine and heroin dealers on the Silk Road—and one of the informants who brought down Silk Road owner Dread Pirate Roberts.

"The conditions of the bond were clear: Sadler wasn't allowed leave the state of Washington. He was also strictly forbidden from dealing or using drugs.

"Hold on,” he cut in at one point. “I have to buy some cocaine, can I call you back?"

Five minutes later, he was back on the line, as chatty as ever.

At the time, there was no clear direction forward. Maybe he'd go to Las Vegas on a wild bender. Maybe he'd try to start his drug empire over in Los Angeles. Maybe he’d visit old friends in his hometown who didn't know about his criminal enterprise.

Sadler talked through each potential scenario, as if working through them in his mind, looking for possibilities and pitfalls. In roughly 10 hours of phone calls over the course of several weeks, Sadler told me almost everything.

Then he dropped off the grid."

Submission + - Virgin Galactic unveils it's other rocket engine (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by mknewman
mknewman writes: Two types of Newton engines have been designed for use on Virgin Galactic's two-stage LauncherOne rocket, which is destined to carry satellites into orbit from the WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane starting as early as 2016. Future generations of the Newton could conceivably send rocket planes from, say, New York to London in 45 minutes.

The NewtonOne, an upper-stage engine designed to provide 3,500 pounds of thrust, has been run for its projected full mission duration of five minutes, Ringuette told NBC News during a tour of the test site. The NewtonTwo, which would serve as LauncherOne's first-stage engine, has been hot-fired for just a few seconds at a time so far. When it's ready for prime time, Virgin Galactic expects it to blast away for about two and a half minutes, with 47,500 pounds of thrust.

Submission + - Microsoft Merges Windows Phone And Windows Store Developer Accounts

Submitted by rjmarvin
rjmarvin writes: There is now a unified registration procedure http://sdt.bz/65333 for Windows Store and Windows Phone developers. Developers of each can use the same account, while managing apps with separate Dev Center dashboards, to submit apps to each store. Windows App Store General Manager Todd Brix announced the merger in a blog post http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/appbuilder/archive/2013/11/06/unifying-developer-registration-windows-and-windows-phone.aspx yesterday, revealing that new developers need only pay a one-time fee of $19 for registration to both app stores, or $99 for a company account.

Submission + - French Court Orders Google To Block Pics and Links of Max Mosley (pcmag.com)

Submitted by Virtucon
Virtucon writes: This one goes to the old adage "closing the stable door after the horse bolted." A French court on Wednesday ruled that Google must remove from its search results photos of a former Formula One racing chief, Max Mosley, participating in an Nazi-themed orgy. Google could be fined up to 1,000 Euros/day for not complying. What's strange here is that Mosley A) Sued in a French Court B) Didn't go after anybody else other than Google and C) has definitely strange tastes in extracurricular activities. In this day and age it's laughable to think that once your private photos/videos hit the Internet that you have any expectation of reigning them in or filtering the embarrassing parts out. Google isn't the only game in town so to speak in terms of Internet search. I wonder if his lawyers checked out Yahoo or WebCrawler? Of course Google plans to appeal the decision to ... be able to show pics of an old man getting er um never mind...

Submission + - A Playstation 4 Teardown

Submitted by Dave Knott
Dave Knott writes: Just over one week ahead of the launch of the Playstation 4, Wired has posted an article with a full teardown of Sony's new device. In an accompanying video Sony engineering director Yasuhiro Ootori dismantles the PS4 piece by piece, describing each component and showing just what is contained inside the sleek black box.

Submission + - Saudi Nuclear Weapons 'On Order' From Pakistan (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: The BBC reports, "Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, ... While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic. Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery. Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring." Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the kingdom has sent the Americans numerous signals of its intentions. " — A Telegraph story from July discusses a recently identified Saudi missile base. The Christian Science Monitor reports on slow progress in negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. NBC news reports on strained relations between the US and Saudi Arabia.

Submission + - Want a petabyte of mobile data? That'll be £8m, please (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by nk497
nk497 writes: UK mobile operator EE has unveiled a new mobile data plan for businesses: the world's first petabyte data bundle. The petabyte bundle – one million gigabytes – costs a cool £8m, but according to EE it could save companies, such as broadcasters, that rely on data millions of pounds in the long term by using mobile connections instead of satellites. "Satellite uplink costs range from £20/GB for data transfer," it says. "Super Bundles, costing £8 per gigabyte for a petabyte of data, could save broadcasters as much as £12 million when using that amount of data."

Submission + - Internet Archive Burns (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Rambo Tribble
Rambo Tribble writes: The San Francisco building housing the Internet Archive, and its popular Wayback Machine, has suffered a serious fire. While no archived data was destroyed, materials awaiting archival were. Rebuilding with be a major undertaking, and the group is soliciting donations.

Submission + - As IPO Nears, Do Twitter's Active User Claims Add Up? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: With Twitter’s IPO looming, an independent developer who is intimately familiar with the makeup and behavior of the site’s users says his analysis of 1 million random accounts does not support the company’s claims of 215 million active monthly users and 100 million active daily users. In fact, Si Dawson, who until March ran Twit Cleaner, a popular app used to weed deadwood and spammers from Twitter accounts, puts those numbers at 112 million and 48 million, respectively, or about half of what Twitter claims.

Submission + - H.264 going Free (cisco.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We plan to open-source our H.264 codec, and to provide it as a binary module that can be downloaded for free from the Internet. Cisco will not pass on our MPEG LA licensing costs for this module, and based on the current licensing environment, this will effectively make H.264 free for use in WebRTC.

Submission + - Dark Mail initiative being Kickstarted

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There is a Kickstarter page for the Dark Mail initiative which promises to clean up and release code for the "magma" encrypted email daemon of Lavabit infamy. The kickstarter campaign also promises to begin development on an open source Dark Mail Protocol client to connect to the daemon. The only "real" reward for donating is the peace of mind brought by a ubiquitous encrypted mail solution, but that's enough for me.

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