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Comment Babylon 5 but... (Score 1) 480

by WhiteDragon (#48916049) Attached to: Best 1990s Sci-fi show?

I loved both Babylon 5 and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but usually Babylon 5 was my favorite. However, I have one exception which for me shall forever reign as the epitome of awesomeness:

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!
Robotics

DALER: a Bio-Inspired Robot That Can Both Fly and Walk 14

Posted by timothy from the sounds-like-the-perfect-babysitting-tool dept.
An anonymous reader writes The issue of how to use one robot across multiple terrains is an ongoing question in robotics research. In a paper published in Bioinspiration and Biomimetics today, a team from LIS, EPFL and NCCR Robotics propose a new kind of flying robot that can also walk. Called the DALER (Deployable Air-Land Exploration Robot), the robot uses adaptive morphology inspired by the common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus, meaning that the wings have been actuated using a foldable skeleton mechanism covered with a soft fabric so that they can be used both as wings and as legs (whegs).

Submission + - Mark Shuttleworth Says Open-Source is More Secure Because of Diversity (datamation.com)

Submitted by darthcamaro
darthcamaro writes: 2014 was seen by some as a tough year for open-source, given the Heartbleed and Shellshock vulnerabilities that impacted millions of users and systems. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux (and former space tourist) has a different view. 2014 was a great year for him, as he marked the 10th anniversary of Ubuntu — and in terms of security he knows exactly why the open-source model is superior.

"The great thing about open source is that it's so dynamic and has so much innovation, that we have much more diversity in our ecosystem than there has ever been in the proprietary ecosystem," Shuttleworth said. "You'll never stop security issues from occurring in either open source or proprietary software but you deal with issues faster in open source."

Submission + - More Than 100,000 WordPress Sites Has Infected By SoakSoak Virus (brightverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: brightverge.com: On Sunday, mysterious Russia named SoakSoak Virus has infected more than 100,000 WordPress sites, transforming them into attack platforms. Google has already developed the index 11000 sites to avoid further damage. SoakSoak is almost deliberated a prevalent considering the damage that it has done so far.

Submission + - US army could waive combat training for hackers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New U.S. Army cyber warriors could be spared the rigors of combat training to help the Pentagon attract badly needed recruits from the ponytail wearing Google generation, a top American general has suggested. Lt Gen Brown, commander of the US Army Combined Arms Centre at Fort Leavenworth, said: 'We need to give serious consideration to how the US Army could combine the technical expertise of the "Google" generation with its more traditional military skills. In order to gain an intellectual advantage over adversaries in cyberspace, we will need to tap into a talent pool that may not fit the stereotypical soldier profile. Our goal is to recruit the best talent possible.'"

Submission + - Windows 8.1 Vulnerability Revealed in Google Database After Timeout

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google's security research database has after a 90 day timeout automatically undisclosed a Windows 8.1 vulnerability which Microsoft hasn't yet patched. By design the system call NtApphelpCacheControl() in ahcache.sys allows application compatibility data to be cached for quick reuse when new processes are created. A normal user can query the cache but cannot add new cached entries as the operation is restricted to administrators. This is checked in the function AhcVerifyAdminContext(). Long story short, the aforementioned function has a vulnerability where it doesn't correctly check the impersonation token of the caller to determine if the user is an administrator. It hasn't been fully verified if Windows 7 is vulnerable. For a passer-by it is also hard to tell whether Microsoft has even reviewed the issue reported by the Google researcher. The database has already one worried comment saying that automatically revealing a vulnerability just like that might be a bad idea.

Submission + - 13 Things We Learned About Programmers In 2014 (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: It seems these days like anyone and everyone can call themselves a programmer. But true software engineers remain a somewhat mysterious and exotic breed of tech worker. Here's a sampling of things we learned about them in 2014: Programmers from state schools get the best ROI on college, Alan Turing is the most important programmer of all time, and while Clojure programmers are the happiest, Java programmers earn the most.

Submission + - Bitcoin gets its first TV ads

Submitted by MRothenberg
MRothenberg writes: Bitcoin's not just for libertarians and drug dealers any more! Electronic payment service BitPay this week launched a campaign aimed at making Bitcoin transactions more appealing to mainstream business owners — the first time Bitcoin has been featured in a TV spot. Conceived by Felton Interactive Group, the two new ads promote Bitcoin and BitPay as a secure alternative to traditional credit-card transactions.

Comment Re:I'm so sad... :( (Score 1) 97

by WhiteDragon (#48690827) Attached to: My laptop lasts on battery for ...

None of the batteries in any of my laptops work anymore.... I have zero choices to vote for!

I'm in the same boat. I have two old Dell Inspirons and the battery has failed in both. I just run them off of power, and hibernate/suspend-to-disk when done working (which I have configured to happen automatically when I shut the lid). It's not as nice as having a working battery, but it's useable. I could buy new batteries, but last I checked, the official Dell ones are several hundred dollars, and third-party knockoff ones are almost a hundred. That's not worth it for my 10 year old laptops that I got for free.

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