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Submission + - Hover cars to be built in Tel Aviv

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: A 500m loop will be built on the campus of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) followed by a commercial network, according to skyTran, the company that will build it. Two-person vehicles will be suspended from elevated magnetic tracks, as an alternative transport method to congested roads, the firm promised. The system should be up and running by the end of 2015. The firm hopes the test track will prove that the technology works and lead to a commercial version of the network. The plan is to allow passengers to order a vehicle on their smartphone to meet them at a specific station and then head directly to their destination.

Submission + - CIA rendition jet was waiting in Europe to kidnap Snowden 5

Submitted by Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: As Edward Snowden made his dramatic escape to Russia a year ago, a secret US government jet previously employed in CIA 'rendition' flights on which terror suspects disappeared into 'black' imprisonment flew into Europe in a bid to spirit him back to the United States. On the evening of 24 June 2013, an unmarked Gulfstream V business jet took off from a quiet commercial airport 30 miles from a Washington DC. regional airport discreetly offers its clients 'the personal accommodations and amenities you can't find at commercial airports'. On its best-known mission, the jet flew a U.S. marshals into the UK on to collect radical cleric Abu Hamza after the United States won an extradition order against him. Only Vladimir Putin's intransigence saved Snowden from a similar travel package. The jet's activities can be followed on many flight tracking websites such as FlightAware

Submission + - Endurance experiment writes one petabyte to six consumer SSDs

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: Last year, we kicked off an SSD endurance experiment to see how much data could be written to six consumer drives. One petabyte later, half of them are still going. Their performance hasn't really suffered, either. The casualties slowed down a little toward the very end, and they died in different ways. The Intel 335 Series and Kingston HyperX 3K provided plenty of warning of their imminent demise, though both still ended up completely unresponsive at the very end. The Samsung 840 Series, which uses more fragile TLC NAND, perished unexpectedly. It also suffered a rash of cell failures and multiple bouts of uncorrectable errors during its life. While the sample size is far too small to draw any definitive conclusions, all six SSDs exceeded their rated lifespans by hundreds of terabytes. The fact that all of them wrote over 700TB is a testament to the endurance of modern SSDs.

Submission + - US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Sites like Google and Bing Maps will be able to use higher-quality satellite images, thanks to US government restrictions being lifted. Companies had not been allowed to make use of images where features smaller than 50cm were visible. But one imaging firm, Digital Globe, said it would be able to sell images that showed features as small as 31cm. Digital Globe said new satellites would be launched to take advantage of the ruling. The company's Worldview-3 satellite is due to launch in August and will be able to show "key features such as manholes and mailboxes". "In the past, collecting sub-50cm resolution required chartering and flying aircraft," the company said. "This is expensive, time-consuming, and can be limited by denied airspace or dangerous conditions."

Submission + - Crowd-control drones reveal the technology's dark side

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: The Skunk, built by Desert Wolf, is designed to "control unruly crowds without endangering the lives of security staff," and is reportedly already being adopted by South African mine owners. Equipped with a 4,000-strong clip and four paintball gun barrels, the Skunk can fire up to 80 projectiles in a single second. It can carry dye markers, pepper spray bullets or even solid plastic balls, which somewhat stretches the definition of "non lethal." The hardware also carries strobe lights and on-board speakers to disorientate and warn the crowd, as well as a FLIR thermal camera for night vision operations.

Submission + - Online shoppers across Europe now have new rights

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Previously, anyone who bought a product online was allowed seven business days during which they were able to change their mind and return the product for a full refund. This ‘cooling-off period’, during which a refund can be requested without being required to give a reason for the cancellation, has now been extended to fourteen calendar days from the date on which the goods are received. Online retailers and providers are now also banned from 'pre-ticking' optional extras on order forms, such as those adding insurance to the cost of a purchase. For the first time, laws have also been introduced to offer a cooling-off period for digital content, including music, films and books, as BBC News reports. Consumers may now cancel an order for digital content within fourteen days, but only if they have not downloaded it.

Submission + - NASA physicist, artist unveil an enterprising warp-speed craft design

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Thanks to a NASA physicist, the notion of warp speed might just travel out of sci-fi and into the real world.
NASA's Harold White has been working since 2010 to develop a warp drive that will allow spacecraft to travel at speeds faster than light — 186,000 miles per second. White, who heads NASA's Advanced Propulsion Team, spoke about his conceptual starship at a conference last fall. But interest in his project reached a new level this week when he unveiled images of what the craft might look like. Created by artist Mark Rademaker, who based them on White's designs, the images show a technologically detailed spacecraft that wouldn't look out of place in a "Star Trek" movie. Rademaker says creating them took more than 1,600 hours. In his speech, White described space warps as faraway galaxies that can bend light around them. "There's no speed limit on the expansion and contraction of space, You can actually find a way to get around what I like to call the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light."

Submission + - EU's top court may define obesity as a disability 2

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: The EU's top court is considering a test case which could oblige employers to treat obesity as a disability. Denmark has asked the European Court of Justice to rule on the case of a male childminder who says he was sacked for being too fat. The court's final ruling will be binding across the EU. It is seen as especially significant because of rising obesity levels in Europe and elsewhere, including the US. If the judges decide it is a disability then employers could face new obligations. Employers might in future have a duty to create reserved car parking spaces for obese staff, or adjust the office furniture for them, she said.

Submission + - Mozilla to sell '$25' Firefox OS smartphones in India

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Mozilla, the organisation behind the Firefox browser, has announced it will start selling low-cost smartphones in India within the "next few months". Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the firm's chief operating officer suggested the handsets, which will be manufactured by two Indian companies, would retail at $25 (£15). They will run Mozilla's HTML5 web-based mobile operating system, Firefox OS. The firm already sells Firefox-powered phones in Europe and Latin America.

Submission + - Intel loses appeal over $1.44bn EU Fine

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Chip giant Intel has lost a challenge against a record 1.06bn (£852m; $1.44bn) European fine for anti-competitive practices. Judges at the Luxembourg-based General Court backed a 2009 European Commission decision that Intel had blocked rival Advanced Micro Devices. Intel said it was "very disappointed" with the decision. The company can appeal to Court of Justice of the European Union, but only on points of law. In 2009 the European Commission found that between 2002 and 2007, Intel gave rebates to PC makers Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co, Japan's NEC and Lenovo to favour its chips over those of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The EU competition authority said Intel also paid German retail chain Media Saturn Holding to stock only computers with its chips. The General Court judges said that the Commission had been right to impose its fine.

Submission + - The Government Can No Longer Track Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant 1

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: The government cannot use cell phone location data as evidence in a criminal proceeding without first obtaining a warrant, an appeals court ruled today, in one of the most important privacy decisions in recent memory.
"In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy," the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled. "The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation."

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