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Submission + - Google's Project Ara Brings a Lego Style Phone

randomErr writes: Project Ara is an empty shell that lets you snap-in the modules you want. You want a mini weather station that tracks you where you travel? Snap in a GPS, barometer, thermometer, and humidity sensor and still have 8 slots open to expand the device. The base model is scheduled to go on sale sometime this year for $50-100 with a service plan sometime this year.

Submission + - World's Oldest Domain Turns 30 Today 1

randomErr writes: On March 15, 1985 Massachusetts-based computer company Symbolics purchased the first domain. Symbolics originally created workstations that were eventually seen in the movie Jurassic Park. Later they went on to create the Lisp language but were force to close their doors in 1993 because of growing competition. Aron Meystedt of XF.com Investments called Symbolics and asked if the domain was for sale. Meystedt purchased the domain and turned it in an internet history archive.

Submission + - Senate Panel Secretly Approves Cyberthreat Sharing Bill (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting behind closed doors, voted 14-1 late Thursday to approve the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act [CISA]. Senator Ron Wyden, who cast the lone vote against the legislation, said it doesn’t adequately protect privacy. 'If information-sharing legislation does not include adequate privacy protections, then that’s not a cybersecurity bill — it’s a surveillance bill by another name,' Wyden said in a statement. The bill would have a 'limited impact' on U.S. cybersecurity, he added.

Submission + - Dog Sniffs out Cancer in Human Urine 1

randomErr writes: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) found out that a scent-trained dog can identify thyroid cancer in human urine samples 88.2 percent of the time. Frankie, a male German shepherd mix identified the presence of cancerous cells in 30 out of 34 samples. The shepherd was only slightly less accurate than a standard thyroid biopsy. This offers the possibility of a cheaper, less invasive approach to diagnosis of the illness said Donald Bodenner, M.D., PhD, the study's senior investigator.

Submission + - A Gadget for Prototyping the Internet of Things (wired.com)

irl_4795 writes: How often do you notice the tiny green light on your electronic toothbrush, or the backlight on your smart thermostat? Probably rarely, and that’s entirely the point: those luminescent cues are designed specifically to catch your attention only when the gadget needs to communicate something like a low battery charge, or unusual activity.

Submission + - IG Audit: 6.5 Million People With Active SSNs Are 112 or Older (ssa.gov) 1

schwit1 writes: Many people are living longer, but not to age 112 or beyond — except in the records of the Social Security Administration.

The SSA's inspector general has identified 6.5 million number-holders age 112 — or older — for whom no death date has been entered in the main electronic file, called Numident. The audit, dated March 4, 2015, concluded that SSA lacks the controls necessary to annotate death information on the records of number-holders who exceed "maximum reasonable life expectancies.

Some of the numbers assigned to long-dead people were used fraudulently to open bank accounts. And thousands of those numbers apparently were used by illegal immigrants to apply for work:
"During Calendar Years 2008 through 2011, SSA received 4,024 E-Verify inquiries using the SSNs of 3,873 numberholders born before June 16, 1901," the report said. "These inquiries indicate individuals' attempts to use the SSNs to apply for work."

Submission + - Kali Linux on a Raspberry Pi (A/B+/2) with LUKS Disk (offensive-security.com)

An anonymous reader writes: With the advent of smaller, faster ARM hardware such as the new Raspberry Pi 2 (which now has a Kali image built for it), we’ve been seeing more and more use of these small devices as “throw-away computers“. While this might be a new and novel technology, there’s one major drawback to this concept – and that is the confidentiality of the data stored on the device itself. Most of the setups do little to protect the sensitive information saved on the SD cards of these little computers.

Submission + - Monday's Keep Us Up At Night

randomErr writes: Tune Hotels Group completed a study that we're like Wowbagger from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in that we can't deal well with Sunday afternoons and nights. People in general have a sleep deficit because of the anxieties about starting the working week. Jason Ellis, Professor of Sleep Science at Northumbria University is quotes as saying "Sunday-somnia" is something I see a lot and it's important that people deal with the issues surrounding their sleep deprivation so that it doesn't have a knock on effect on sleep later in the week.'

Submission + - New Tire Can Recharge Your Battery

randomErr writes: Goodyear Tire showed off its new BH03 tire that can partially recharge your electric car while driving. At the 2015 Geneva International Motor Show a new concept tire was displayed that uses heat generated while driving and converts the thermal energy to electrical power. The triple inner tube design changes pressure to maximize electrical output while adjusting to the road conditions.

Submission + - Make those Brown Eyes Blue 2

randomErr writes: A new procedure has been developed that can turn any brown eye to blue. The procedure uses a laser that disturbs the melanin in the pigmented part of the eye. Over the course of a few weeks your body would eliminate the disturbed pigment revealing the blue layer below all people have. The procedure costs about $5,000 and only takes a few second to complete. You can't get it yet in the U.S. because it still going through clinical trials and some ophthalmologists fear that process could increase pressure in the eyes.

Comment Re:Lift the gag order first... (Score 1) 550

Net Neutrality say if X service (lets say Netflix) is killing your entire network's performance you have to live with it. You can't partition Netflix into it's own walled garden. For big companies that have millions in the bank they can buy new pipes left and right. But the mom and pop shops have to take months to buy more bandwidth. During that time they're losing customers to the big guys and possible going out of business.

They Law of Unintended Consequences from Net Neutrality is that you just turned the Big 3 ISP's into the internet equivalent of Walmart.

Submission + - Microsoft Closing 2 China Phone Factories

randomErr writes: Microsoft closing two factories in China by the end of March. About 9,000 jobs will be lost to as part of it's purchase of Nokia Corp's handset business. Much of the equipment located in Beijing and the southeastern city of Dongguan factories are being shipped to Vietnam. With the purchase from Nokia last April there will be about 18,000 layoffs throughout Microsoft.

Submission + - Australian researchers create world's first 3D-printed aircraft engines

stephendavion writes: Researchers from the Monash University, CSIRO and Deakin University in Australia have created two 3D-printed aircraft engines. One of the 3D-printed engines is being showcased at the ongoing International Air Show in Avalon, while the other is at Microturbo (Safran) in Toulouse, France. Monash and its subsidiary Amaero Engineering attracted interests from tier one aerospace companies to produce components at the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing (MCAM) in Melbourne. Researchers used an old gas turbine engine from Microturbo to scan components and print two versions. The engine is an auxiliary power unit equipped in aircraft such as the Falcon 20 business jet.

Comment Re:Obligatory Onion link (Score 2) 314

In the 80's they were:
- Riding the last of the CB revolution
- Riding the last of the Space Patrol brand
- Pushing out tons of TRS computers (CoCo 3 anyone?)
- Select over-priced products based on their reputations (VCR's, TV's, and weird NES co-processor add-on that did '10 bit games)
- Started selling Motorola phones

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