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Submission + - The Next Great IT Job Killer May Already Be Here

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: A quiet revolution with a potential impact on the IT workforce reminiscent of outsourcing may be under way in the form of robotic process automation, InfoWorld reports. 'Geared toward automating a variety of business and computing processes typically handled by humans, RPA will stir passions at organizations that deploy the technology, with its potential to slash jobs, shake up the relevant skills mix, and if implemented strategically, stave off the specter of outsourcing.' BPOs and enterprises alike are implementing the technology and seeing positive results in slashing labor costs. 'I would say most IT infrastructure support jobs will be eliminated over the next three years,' says Frank Casale, founder of the Institute for Robotic Process Automation. That sentiment may be a bit bullish on the tech, but early results suggest that a shakeup of the IT workforce could be near, as RPA puts higher-value IT tasks in automation's cross-hairs.

Submission + - Pixar Releases Free Version of RenderMan

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A year ago the animation studio Pixar promised its RenderMan animation and rendering suite to eventually become free for non-commercial use. This was originally scheduled to happen in the SIGGRAPH 2014 computer graphics conference, but things got delayed. Nevertheless, today Pixar is releasing the free version into wild. Free non-commercial RenderMan can be used for research, education, evaluation, plug-in development, and any personal projects that do not generate commercial profits. This version is fully featured, without a watermark or any kind of artificial limits. Featuring Pixar's new RIS technology, RenderMan delivers extremely fast global illumination and interactive shading and lighting for artists. The software is available for Mac, Linux and Windows. In conjunction with the release, Pixar has also launched a new RenderMan Community site where users can exchange knowledge and resources, showcase their own work, share assets such as shaders and scripts, and learn about RenderMan from tutorials.

Submission + - Why Not Utopia? Mark Bittman on basic income and increasing automation (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Paul Fernhout
Paul Fernhout writes: Mark Bittman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times suggesting a basic income as a solution to increasing automation leading to job loss. He concludes: "We have achieved a level of social equality barely imagined by progressives 50 years ago, but economic equality has gotten much worse. No one knows what the world will look like in 50 years, but if we resign ourselves to dystopia — in which capital has full control, as it nearly does now — we'll surely have one. Let's resolve to build something better. In the long run we know that we'll make the transition from capitalism to some less destructive and hopefully more just system. Why not begin that transition now? If there is going to be a global market that will further enrich capitalists, there must be guarantees that the rest of the population can at least afford housing and food. And things can be even better than that: We'll have the robots work for us."

Submission + - New Estimate: Billions of Milky Way Planets are in the Habitable Zone (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Press2ToContinue
Press2ToContinue writes: Astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets using the Kepler satellite. By analyzing these planetary systems, researchers have calculated the probability for the number of stars that might have planets in the habitable zone. The calculations show that billions of stars in the Milky Way will have one to three planets in the habitable zone, where there is the potential for liquid water and where life could exist.

Submission + - Hardware Device Can Bruteforce iPhone Pass Codes

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: MDsec reports that a a device known as an IP Box used for phone repair can bruteforce the iOS screenlock. The device appears to be relatively simple in that it simulates the PIN entry over the USB connection and sequentially bruteforces every possible PIN combination. According to MDsec that in itself is not unsurprising and has been known for some time but what is surprising is that this still works even with the “Erase data after 10 attempts” configuration setting enabled. "Our initial analysis indicates that the IP Box is able to bypass this restriction by connecting directly to the iPhone’s power source and aggressively cutting the power after each failed PIN attempt, but before the attempt has been synchronized to flash memory." The device is on sale in England for £119.99. "Simply attach the device to the iPhone or iPad and it will give you the code within 6 seconds to 17 hours. You will then have full access to your iPhone / iPad and all user data remains intact. "

Submission + - Why is the Grand Theft Auto CEO also chairman of the ESRB?

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: In an editorial at GamesIndustry.biz, Brendan Sinclair asks an important question about the game ratings board in America. Should Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two, which owns the Grand Theft Auto franchise and has been at the heart of the ESRB's biggest controversies of the last decade, really be serving at its chairman? "No matter how removed from the day-to-day running of the ESRB Zelnick might be, his current role invites accusations of impropriety," he writes. "It's the sort of thing any critic of the games industry can point to as a clear conflict of interest, and many reasonable outsiders would probably look at that as a valid complaint. At least when titans of industry in the US become the head of the regulatory agencies that oversee their former companies, they actually have to leave those companies."

Submission + - How to Make Moonshots (medium.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google Glass failed. Its self-driving cars might change the world. At Google[x], pursuing the biggest, craziest projects means getting comfortable with failure—and embarrassment. Astro Teller, who leads Google's experimental lab Google[x], embraces the idea that failing fast is a way to learn even faster.

Larry Page told me, a little over two years ago, that he wanted to see us crash at least five of these scale versions of the energy kite. Obviously he wants us to be safe and we work very hard to be safe in everything that we do. What he meant by that was that he wanted to see us push ourselves to learn as fast as possible and though the learning from the crashing itself would be close to zero, he was pointing out that if you aren’t failing, if you aren’t breaking your experimental equipment at least occasionally, you could be learning faster.

Submission + - Gates-Backed Echodyne's Metamaterials Radar for Drones

Submitted by Benjamin Romano
Benjamin Romano writes: High-performance radar: Not just for the nose cone of your F-22 anymore. Metamaterials enable radars capable of things like simultaneous scanning and tracking at costs and weights low enough to be viable for commercial applications including drones, self-driving cars, and other autonomous vehiclesaccording to Echodyne, a Seattle-area startup developing the technology with investment from Bill Gates and Paul Allen, among others.

Submission + - Most Powerful Geomagnetic Storm of Solar Cycle 24 is Happening (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: The most powerful solar storm of the current solar cycle is currently reverberating around the globe. Initially triggered by the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME) hitting our planet’s magnetosphere, a relatively mild geomagnetic storm erupted at around 04:30 UT (12:30 a.m. EDT), but it has since ramped-up to an impressive G4-class geomagnetic storm, priming high latitudes for some bright auroral displays.

Submission + - Windows 10's Biometric Security Layer Introduced

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: One of the major concepts of Windows 10 are new security ideas, and though Microsoft has touched on this topic before, it's only now giving us a more comprehensive look in the form of "Windows Hello". This is an authentication system that uses a variety of biometric signatures and combines hardware and software to allow for seamless and secure user recognition and sign-in. According to Microsoft, the ideal scenario here would be for you to simply look or touch a new device running Windows 10 and to be immediately signed up. The software analyzes input from such hardware as fingerprint scanners and infrared sensors to make sure that you are you and not some imposter, and then signs you in without requiring you to enter a password. But the point of Windows Hello isn't only convenience, as the company's blog post notes, but also security. We've heard time and time again how insecure passwords are, and Microsoft is aiming to offer a widely-deployed replacement while still delivering enterprise grade security and privacy.

Submission + - Carbon3D Reveals New 3D Printing Process 100X Faster than Current Technology

Submitted by ErnieKey
ErnieKey writes: Carbon3D, a stealth startup based in Redwood City, CA. has just announced a new breakthrough 3D printing technology called Continuous Liquid Interface Production technology (CLIP). The process works by using oxygen as an inhibiting agent as a UV light rapidly cures a photosensitive resin. The company has just emerged from stealth mode and announced that they have raised a staggering $41 million to further develop the process and bring it to market.

Submission + - Police fight to keep use of Stingrays secret

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: The New York Times looks at how local police are fighting to keep their use of cell phone surveillance secret, including signing NDAs with Stingray manufacturer Harris Corp and claiming the documents have been lost. It's part of a broader trend of local agencies adopting the tactics of covert intelligence groups as they seek to adopt new technology in the digital era.

Submission + - Russia abandons super-rocket designed to compete with SLS

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Russia has decided to abandon an expensive attempt to build an SLS-like super-rocket and will instead focus on incremental development of its smaller but less costly Angara rocket.

Facing significant budgetary pressures, the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has indefinitely postponed its ambitious effort to develop a super-heavy rocket to rival NASA's next-generation Space Launch System, SLS. Instead, Russia will focus on radical upgrades of its brand-new but smaller Angara-5 rocket which had its inaugural flight in Dec. 2014, the agency's Scientific and Technical Council, NTS, decided on Thursday, Mar. 12.

For Russia's space industry, it appears that these budgetary pressures have been a blessing in disguise. Rather than waste billions on an inefficient rocket for which there is no commercial demand — as NASA is doing with SLS (under orders from a wasteful Congress) — they will instead work on further upgrades of Angara, much like SpaceX has done with its Falcon family of rockets. This will cost far less, is very efficient, and provides them a better chance to compete for commercial launches that can help pay for it all. And best of all, it offers them the least costly path to future interplanetary missions, which means they might actually be able to make those missions happen. To quote the article again:

By switching upper stages of the existing Angara from kerosene to the more potent hydrogen fuel, engineers might be able to boost the rocket's payload from current 25 tons to 35 tons for missions to the low Earth orbit. According to Roscosmos, Angara-A5V could be used for piloted missions to the vicinity of the Moon and to its surface.

In a sense, the race is now on between Angara-A5V and Falcon Heavy.

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