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Submission + - NASA Could Explore Titan With Squishable 'Super Ball Bot' (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: IEEE Spectrum reports on a rover design being developed at NASA Ames Research Center: Super Ball Bot. The premise is that the rover's brain and scientific equipment would be suspended in the middle on a structure made of rigid rods and elastic cables. The rods and cables would be deformable, allowing the rover to roll over complex terrain without damage. This design would be ideal for exploring a place like Saturn's moon Titan. Its atmosphere is thick enough that a probe could drop the rover from 100km above the surface, and it would survive the fall without a parachute. 'In a scenario studied by the team, the robot could be collapsed to a very compact configuration for launch. Once it reaches the moon, it would pop open and drop to the surface, flexing and absorbing the force of impact. By shortening and lengthening the cables that connect its rigid components, the ball bot could then roll about the surface. These same cables could be used to pull back parts of the robot, so that science instruments at the center could be exposed and used.'

Submission + - Shoot down drones by turning your microwave into a gun (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: A New Zealand researcher has detailed ways that UAVs can be crashed using cheap tools like Herf guns and GPS jammers, and could even be downed by flying drones with more powerful radio. The attacks (podcast) interfere with the navigation systems used by flying drones and are possible because security was not designed into the architecture of some machines.

Submission + - 3D model of Australia's Great Barrier Reef & Choral Sea

Submitted by brindafella
brindafella writes: Research from James Cook University's Dr Robin Beaman has aggregated data into a new high-resolution bathymetry model of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea, called gbr100. The 100 metre-resolution gridded bathymetry dataset covers an area of about 3,000,000 km2, from the Gulf of Papua to northern New South Wales, and easterly into the deep Coral Sea. There is also a really interesting colour poster (909kB PDF) to download.
The Internet

Why Is Broadband More Expensive In the US Than Elsewhere? 569

Posted by samzenpus from the pay-up dept.
mrspoonsi writes "The BBC reports "Home broadband in the US costs far more than elsewhere. At high speeds, it costs nearly three times as much as in the UK and France, and more than five times as much as in South Korea. Why?...'Americans pay so much because they don't have a choice,' says Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on science, technology and innovation policy. We deregulated high-speed internet access 10 years ago and since then we've seen enormous consolidation and monopolies, so left to their own devices, companies that supply internet access will charge high prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight."

Submission + - Google set to use your name and photos for ads (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google on Friday announced that it would soon be able to show users’ names, photos, ratings and comments in ads across the Web, endorsing marketers’ products. Facebook already runs similar endorsement ads. But on Thursday it, too, took a step to show personal information more broadly by changing its search settings to make it harder for users to hide from other people trying to find them on the social network.

Comment Re:Charles Darwin Wrote (Score 5, Funny) 745

by Farmer Tim (#45079381) Attached to: US Adults Score Poorly On Worldwide Test

Orangutans have a larger brain than us, and all they do is spend all day swinging around in trees, eating fresh fruit and having sex while we build cities, invent gods so we can torture ourselves with guilt, and go to war over sticky black goo in the ground.

Hmm...

Actually, it sounds like a bigger brain is better.

Submission + - Silk road finally taken down (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by onyxruby
onyxruby writes: The silk road website has finally been taken down and seized by the government. The criminal complaint against 29-year-old owner Ross Ulbricht can be found over at Krebs On Security.

Probably the largest question about the seizure of the Silk Road is what took so long? It can only be assumed that the site was being monitored for a period of time to facilitate additional cases. Other like kind competing sites already offer similar services and of course always lead to the question of, is this a trap?

Submission + - Silk Road shut down, founder arrested (orlandosentinel.com)

Submitted by u38cg
u38cg writes: Ross William Ulbricht, known as "Dread Pirate Roberts," was arrested in San Francisco yesterday and has been charged with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing. Silk Road has been shut down and some $3.6m in Bitcoin seized.

The question is — how?

Submission + - Dice Ruins Slashdot (slashdot.org) 12

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In an attempt to modernize Slashdot, Dice has removed everything that made Slashdot unique and worthwhile and has turned it into a generic blog site. User feedback has been unanimously negative, but this is to no avail, and users will have to head elsewhere for insightful and entertaining commentary on tech news.

Comment Re:Scouts isn't exactly generic... (Score 1) 289

by Farmer Tim (#44953381) Attached to: Boy Scouts Bully Hacker Scouts Into Submission

You wouldn't confuse the activities, perhaps, but taking the names on face value it would be easy to assume that the Hacker Scouts are affiliated with the Boy Scouts simply by being in the same field (youth groups), and that's precisely what trademark law is aimed at preventing. Put it this way: if you opened a sushi bar called "McDonalds" you'd get sued by McDonald's, because even though you're serving unmistakably different food, that name is trademarked in the restaurant business. A restaurant is a class of organisation, a youth group is a class of organisation, the little details like what's on the menu or what activities they offer are largely irrelevant as far as trademark law is concerned.

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