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Submission + - Aviation Experts: "TWA 800 brought down by ordinance explosions" (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A group of whistleblowers, including a number of aviation experts, have come forward in a new documentary to claim that the official explanation for the crash of TWA Flight 800 was wrong and a gas tank explosion did not bring down the flight off the coast of Long Island 17 years ago.

âoe..This team of investigators who actually handled the wreckage and victimsâ(TM) bodies, prove that the officially proposed fuel-air explosion did not cause the crash, ...They also provide radar and forensic evidence proving that one or more ordinance explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash.â

The whistleblower team, which includes investigators-at the time-from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), TWA, and the Airline Pilots Association, have since retired from their positions. They claim that at the time, they were placed under a gag order by the NTSB, which they charged falsified the official conclusion of the cause of the crash. They indicated they would elaborate more in a Wednesday media briefing.

Submission + - PDP-11 still working in Nuclear Plants - for 37 more years (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Most of the younger /. readers never heard of PDP-11, while we geezers have to retrieve bits and pieces of our affairs with PDP-11 from the vast warehouse inside our memory lanes



PDP-11, the old work horse, are still proving their worth in GE nuclear plants, and they will be working there for 37 more years, until year 2,050

Which means, they are still trying to look for people who can work PDP-11

If you are out of a job, a knowledge of PDP-11 assembly language may land you a very comfy living

Submission + - Apple's new iOS design receives mixed reviews 1

Submitted by Trajan Przybylski
Trajan Przybylski writes: The design of the new iOS 7 unveiled last Monday at Apple's annual WWDC event attracted unflattering words of criticism from The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky who described the new design as "more childish than elegant". The influential blogger argues that the new interface "ignores the utility of glanceable information", and hence some of the new icons seem quite confusing. A lot has been said about the new Settings icon looking more like an oven burner than a set of gears, for example. Other designers generally praised the anticipated move from skeuomorphism (design approach employing life-like features), which Apple embraced under the leadership of the late Steve Jobs, towards the modern "flat" design, although the move could have been more bold (see for example earlier iOS flat concept by Phillip Joyce). The new iOS design, led by Sir John Ive, follows similar redesigns of the company's products, including apps such as iTunes MiniPlayer and Podcasts App and the new web design of the Apple Store website.

Submission + - IBM to bring KVM to future PowerLinux boxes 1

Submitted by Funk_dat69
Funk_dat69 writes: IBM Executive Arvind Krisha announced today during his Red Hat Summit keynote that IBM is bringing KVM to it's Power Systems next year, specifically to their Linux-only PowerLinux servers. No further details were mentioned, but adding this announcement to the effort to get OpenJDK ported to PPC64 gives a glimpse into IBM's plans for the future of their platform.

Submission + - Majority of Americans Say NSA Phone Tracking Is Not OK To Fight Terrorism (rasmussenreports.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to a weekend poll by Rasmussen, a majority of Americans believe that the feds are spying too much on US citizens, and oppose programs which collect Americans' phone records without specific suspicion of wrongdoing. Rasmussen's results appear to contradict those of an earlier, widely reported Pew survey on this issue.

Submission + - AMD Making a 5 GHz 8-core Processor at 220 Watts (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: It looks like the rumors were true, AMD is going to be selling an FX-9590 processor this month that will hit frequencies as high as 5 GHz. Though originally thought to be an 8-module/16-core part, it turns out that the new CPU will have the same 4-module/8-core design that is found on the current lineup of FX-series processors including the FX-8350. But, with an increase of the maximum Turbo Core speed from 4.2 GHz to 5.0 GHz, the new parts will draw quite a bit more power. You can expect the the FX-9590 to need 220 watts or so to run at those speeds and a pretty hefty cooling solution as well. Performance should closely match the recently released Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell processor so AMD users that can handle the 2.5x increase in power consumption can finally claim performance parity.
NASA

Submission + - In GOP Debate, Gingrich Calls NASA a 'Bureaucracy' (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "During the New Hampshire Republican debate, the following question was asked, "President Obama effectively killed government-run spaceflight to the International Space Station and wants to turn it over to private companies. What role should the government play in future space exploration?" Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was the only candidate to give a coherent answer, which consisted of an attack on NASA as a “bureaucracy” that “can’t innovate.” Gingrich also made the case for private incentives for space exploration."
Microsoft

Submission + - Paul Allen on the Dark Side of the Ocean and More

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: A week after his 60 Minutes appearance, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen lets his guard down a bit more as he talks about his new book 'Idea Man' at Town Hall Seattle to a hometown audience that included his old college girlfriend Rita (who served up chicken that Bill Gates found spoon-eating good). In a wide-ranging interview, Allen cops to being a fan of Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, says it took him 25 years to 'play a half-decent Purple Haze,' and explains the appeal of a personal submarine this way: 'It turns out if you go 1,000 feet down in the ocean, it's really dark, and the animals are really strange, but if you put on some Pink Floyd, it's fantastic.' Allen added that 'no one has disagreed or contradicted any fact or any memory' in the memoir, which includes a story of overhearing Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer plotting to dilute Allen's Microsoft shares into insignificance at a time with Allen was dying of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Security

Submission + - Iran Says Siemens Helped US, Israel Build Stuxnet (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Iran's Brigadier General, Gholam Reza Jalali, accused Siemens on Saturday with helping U.S. and Israeli teams craft the Stuxnet worm that attacked his country's nuclear facilities. 'Siemens should explain why and how it provided the enemies with the information about the codes of the SCADA software and prepared the ground for a cyber attack against us,' Jalali told the Islamic Republic News Service. Siemens did not reply to a request for comment on Jalali's accusations. Stuxnet, which first came to light in June 2010 but hit Iranian targets in several waves starting the year before, has been extensively analyzed by security researchers. Symantec and Langner Commuications say Stuxnet was designed to infiltrate Iran's nuclear enrichment program, hide in the Iranian SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) control systems that operate its plants, then force gas centrifuge motors to spin at unsafe speeds. Jalali suggested that Iranian officials would pursue Siemens in the courts, and claimed that Iranian researchers traced the attack to Israel and the U.S. He said information from infected systems was sent to computers in Texas."
Open Source

Submission + - Open Source Programming Tools on the Rise (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner takes a look at 13 open source development projects making waves in the enterprise. From Git to Hadoop to build management tools, 'even in the deepest corners of proprietary stacks, open source tools can be found, often dominating. The reason is clear: Open source licenses are designed to allow users to revise, fix, and extend their code. The barber or cop may not be familiar enough with code to contribute, but programmers sure know how to fiddle with their tools. The result is a fertile ecology of ideas and source code, fed by the enthusiasm of application developers who know how to "scratch an itch".'"
Programming

Submission + - Asus Xtion Kinect clone available (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Asus has launched Xtion Pro — $189 — which uses the same hardware as its full body sensor the Wavi Xtion but doesn't have any software other than an SDK for Windows and Linux. This, of course makes it useful only if you are going to develop applications using it.
It comes with PrimeSense's drivers and the NITE body tracking software. Asus has also announced a $20,000 competition for the best game using it. This is just a way to get some software to go with the full product launch later in the year but it is also going to set up an app store to help developers market their creations.
Microsoft's own Kinect SDK is technically better but it isn't available just yet and it could well have a restrictive license. At the moment only Asus is saying to developers — "use our hardware to make commercial apps, we'll even help you to sell them and here's a competition to sweeten the deal"

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