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Submission + - Israeli Group Sets Goal Of Moon Landing (ndtv.com) 2

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: NDTV reports, "Israel plans to do what only the world's biggest countries have so far managed to do- to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon ... only Russia, USA and China have soft landed on the moon, and India hard landed its tri-colour using the moon impact probe in 2008 ... The washing machine-sized spacecraft that weighs 121 kilograms is being readied by a not-for-profit venture called SpaceIL ... The Israeli lunar probe had its genesis after the $ 30 million Google Lunar X Prize was announced as a competition which challenged non-state owned space agencies to land on the moon, send back photos, and move 500 meters on the surface of the moon. About two dozen global teams are racing to win the prize- SpaceIL reckons it's in pole position. ... ex-NASA engineer Yonatan Winetraub and two of his friends conceived of the spacecraft in 2010 ... then used a Facebook page to promote the dream. Today, the dream has matured into a $ 36 million mission with 20 full time employees and 250 volunteers. ... Around 40,000 school students have been associated with this project ... " — More at here and at Youtube.

Submission + - Ukraine Police Stop Bus Full Of Pro Government Demonstrators and Beat Them (jonathanturley.org)

Submitted by Desert Leap
Desert Leap writes: What did the Ukrainian masochist say to the Ukrainian policeman? 'Beats me.'

'Ukrainian riot police appear to be having trouble deciding who to beat up. BBC is reporting that police stopped a bus heading to Kiev and assumed that they were more protesters. So, they did what has become standard operating procedure for Ukrainian police: they proceeded to savagely beat the occupants.'

Submission + - Study finds seeing ultrasounds doesn't change abortion plans (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I'm remaining anonymous because of the reactions this article is boud to cause, but Reuters is reporting that "Nearly 99 percent of women went ahead with an abortion after voluntarily viewing an ultrasound image of the fetus beforehand, according to a large new U.S. study... The researchers reviewed medical records from 15,575 visits at 19 Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles during 2011."

Let the flame wars begin...

Submission + - China's hypersonic program has left everyone aghast. It shouldn't have. (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: The Chinese hypersonic missile delivery program has left everyone astonished and wringing their hands. It shouldn't have. As Marco Fey points out: ' it was the US itself that started the race towards Prompt Global Strike capability. Since 2003, the US Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the US Army have worked on developing hypersonic delivery vehicles. Three tests have been conducted so far, at least one of them counting as a success. Hypersonic strike capability comes with a number of strategic implications as its aim is to allow targeting almost every spot on Earth within one hour. The US surprise over China following suit in developing and testing such a system is naïve at best.' Great read.

Submission + - Satya Nadella is Microsoft's Next CEO: Reports (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Microsoft’s next CEO will be Satya Nadella, if current reports prove accurate. According to Re/code, which drew its information from “numerous sources close to Microsoft,” Nadella could officially assume the role in early February. Meanwhile, anonymous sources speaking to Bloomberg suggested that co-founder Bill Gates could be forced to give up his longtime chairman role. Nadella (again, if confirmed) seems a logical choice for Microsoft. He’s been with the company for more than twenty years, eventually becoming executive vice president of its Cloud and Enterprise division. The enterprise remains a key—perhaps the key—customer segment for Microsoft, especially as its mobile and consumer efforts (excluding the Xbox) have floundered in recent years; in order to retain those business clients, Nadella and his team embarked on the creation of “Cloud OS,” the platform that powers Microsoft’s large-scale cloud services such as SkyDrive, Azure, and Office 365. Under his guidance, Microsoft’s revenue from cloud services has grown by several billion over the past few years, so he’s shown that he can expand a business. In addition, his technical background could afford him a measure of respect from Microsoft’s legions of engineers and developers. But if he’s ultimately tapped for the CEO seat, Nadella faces one of the toughest jobs in the technology industry: not only does he need to craft a plan that will allow Microsoft to grow and prosper in an integrated, holistic manner—he’ll need to do it while guiding the company through the massive internal reorganization initiated by his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.

Comment Re:Um, What? (Score 1) 110

by 3vi1 (#45931345) Attached to: Dell Joins Steam Machine Initiative With Alienware System

> i mean the STARTING price is the same as the Xbone, and that is for the LOW END bottom o' the line system? Really?

It's not reasonable to expect a non-subsidized, upgradeable (in the case of many of the models), open console to cost less than subsidized, locked-down hardware with a consolidated-to-be-cheap design.

The Steam Machines are only a bad deal if you are the kind of person that only buys few AAA games and don't want to take advantage the openness to do things like run services (ex. put a minecraft server on your box) and/or emulators for your old console games.

Submission + - Researchers Make Malware Carried By Sound Wves (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Researchers have created malware that delivers stolen data without an Internet connection using inaudible sonic waves generated by a devices's speakers. The multi-hop acoustical keylogger is an experiment by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, rather than an exploit seen in the wild, but it is one more thing to be concerned about

Submission + - The real diamond economy .. (theatlantic.com) 1

Submitted by codeusirae
codeusirae writes: The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade ..

The major investors in the diamond mines realized that they had no alternative but to merge their interests into a single entity that would be powerful enough to control production and perpetuate the illusion of scarcity of diamonds. The instrument they created, in 1888, was called De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., incorporated in South Africa ...

Submission + - LG competes with NSA in spying scandal

Submitted by samjam
samjam writes: It looks like TV maker LG is competing with the NSA for clandestine spying on those who pay them! DoctorBeet's Blog reports that LG then blames it on the retailer for not making you aware of the terms and conditions that are unavailable until after you unbox the set and turn it on. And if you don't accept the terms you can't use many of the TV features.

How does it feel to hear that your LG TV reports watched channels — and USB filenames — even when you thought you configured the TV to not do that? Blog commenter SteveL reports a suspiciously quick firmware update relating to the matter. Have LG covered their tracks sufficiently to escape the sorts legal saction or customer backlash that afflicted other well known companies for misleading privacy policies?

Comment Re:Not this time, Sony (Score 0) 294

by 3vi1 (#45433743) Attached to: PlayStation 4 Released

If you have a Steam game that you can't play in Steam's offline mode, that's the fault of the people making the game, not Valve/Steam..

Valve gives devs a choice of how they want to do their DRM, and you have the choice not to buy games from the particular devs that don't meet your individual expectations.

But, if you'd rather buy a system with more locked down DRM and fewer games, more power to you. You also have the choice to not buy no games that use DRM at all, but then why are you reading a console thread... or is there some option of which I'm unaware?

Comment Re:Not this time, Sony (Score 4, Informative) 294

by 3vi1 (#45433079) Attached to: PlayStation 4 Released

^ My sentiment exactly.

Sony has repeatedly engaged in anti-consumer activity, so I see no reason to support them. I own all the last gen consoles, but I've had it with MS and Sony (and Nintendo's showing this round is not really compelling, IMHO).

I'm going to hold out for a really powerful Steam machine for the living room. Valve seems like a friendlier company, and most of us here probably already own over a hundred titles via Steam.

Comment Mod parent up. (Score 1) 510

by 3vi1 (#44934379) Attached to: Valve Announces Linux-Based SteamOS

The fact that you can plug a Knoppix thumbdrive into almost any system and get booted to a working GUI with sound shows that Linux hardware support is not only good, it's amazingly good.

Use Windows To Go (assuming you have an Enterprise license) and try getting anywhere near the hardware compatibility you get from Linux LiveCDs.

A lot of people think Linux has relatively more installation problems because it might have some install quirk on their hardware. Windows has quirks too - they've just been worked around by a 3rd party before and built into their recovery disk/partition. God knows I spent way too long getting reference drivers for wifi chipsets and printers back when my kids wanted Vista.

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