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Comment Turbine (Score 1) 555

by AlienSexist (#45495113) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: MMORPG Recommendations?
Something is up with Turbine MMOs in general. LotR Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online in particular have been really seen a severe deterioration in game quality update after update. AFAIK there is a major exodus underway from both titles. DDO servers are becoming more and more like ghost towns all the time and it is increasingly difficult to find parties. DDO players, in particular, are really tired of the blatant Pay2Win moneygrab ploys and some I know have ventured over to Path of Exile which, so far, appears to not stink of it. I have no recommendations for the OP, just support of their initial condition.

Submission + - Gone in 360 Seconds: Hijacking with Hitag2 (bham.ac.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In this paper, we show a number of vulnerabilities in the Hitag2 transponders that enable an adversary to retrieve the secret key. We propose three attacks that extract the secret key under different scenarios. We have implemen- ted and successfully executed these attacks in practice on more than 20 vehicles of various make and model. On all these vehicles we were able to use an emulating device to bypass the immobilizer and start the vehicle.

Submission + - NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On The Moon (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In 2015, NASA will attempt to make history by growing plants on the Moon. If they are successful, it will be the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body.

Submission + - Hypervelocity Dust Accelerator: Working with Massive Datasets using Python (oreilly.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Most people working on complex software systems have had That Moment, when you throw up your hands and say “If only we could start from scratch!” Generally, it’s not possible. But every now and then, the chance comes along to build a really exciting project from the ground up.

In 2011, Andrew Collette had the chance to participate in just such a project: the acquisition, archiving and database systems which power a brand-new hypervelocity dust accelerator at the University of Colorado. Here he explains what happened.

Submission + - Toyota Announces Plans for Fuel Cell car by 2015 (chron.com)

Submitted by puddingebola
puddingebola writes: Toyota has announced plans for a fuel cell powered car at the Tokyo Motor show. From the article, "Satoshi Ogiso, the Toyota Motor Corp. executive in charge of fuel cells, said Wednesday the vehicle is not just for leasing to officials and celebrities but will be an everyday car for ordinary consumers, widely available at dealers. "Development is going very smoothly," he told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the Tokyo Motor Show. The car will go on sale in Japan in 2015 and within a year later in Europe and U.S." I couldn't find any further details in searches.

Submission + - Xbox One Review Shows Microsoft Offers Much More Than Just Gaming (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Microsoft has lifted the embargo on full reviews of the Xbox One and it's clear the system is more than just a game console. Of course, the Xbox One plays games—really well, actually. With its updated hardware, more refined controllers, new Kinect sensor, and strong developer support, the Xbox One is an excellent gaming platform. However, Microsoft’s incorporation of a hypervisor that allows the Xbox One to run the Xbox OS and Windows 8 kernel simultaneously opens up a world of additional possibilities. Essentially, you’ve got a device that’s equally as adept at running a cutting-edge game as it is playing back HD video, browsing the web, or video conferencing. The Xbox One's specifications read like a mainstream game PC. At the heart of the Xbox One is an AMD-built, semi-custom APU, featuring 8 "Jaguar" x86-64 CPU cores clocked at up to 1.75GHz and a GCN-based GPU with 768 stream processors, clocked at 853MHz. The APU also features a 32MB eSRAM cache. The APU is paired to 8GB of DDR3-2133 memory and the storage subsystem features 8GB of flash, a 500GB hard disk drive for game installs and bulk storage, and slot-loading Blu-Ray drive. The Xbox One also sports USB 3.0 supports, Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band 2.4GHz + 5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and a dedicated audio off-load processor. Xbox One games that are being shown thus far were expectedly a mix of bold and bland. The hottest titles like Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza Motorsport 5, Dead Rising 3, and Killer Instinct are likely to sell a ton of consoles. They simply look good, play well and will provide lots of fun. Ryse and Forza in particular look impressive.

Submission + - Software Patent Reform Stalls Thanks To IBM and Microsoft Lobbying (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Washington post reports on the progress of a piece of legislation many hoped would address the glut of meaningless software patents used as weapons by patent trolls. Unfortunately, the provision that would have helped the USPTO nix these patents has been nixed itself. The article credits IBM, Microsoft, and other companies with huge patent portfolios for the change, citing an 'aggressive lobbying campaign' that apparently succeeded. Quoting: 'A September letter signed by IBM, Microsoft and several dozen other firms made the case against expanding the program. The proposal, they wrote, "could harm U.S. innovators by unnecessarily undermining the rights of patent holders. Subjecting data processing patents to the CBM program would create uncertainty and risk that discourage investment in any number of fields where we should be trying to spur continued innovation." ... Last week, IBM escalated its campaign against expanding the CBM program. An IBM spokesman told Politico, "While we support what Mr. Goodlatte’s trying to do on trolls, if the CBM is included, we’d be forced to oppose the bill."
Insiders say the campaign against the CBM provisions of the Goodlatte bill has succeeded. The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a markup of the legislation Wednesday, and Goodlatte will introduce a "manager's amendment" to remove the CBM language from his own bill. IBM hailed that change in a Monday letter to Goodlatte.'

Submission + - Glut in Stolen Identities Forces Price Cut (darkreading.com)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: The price of a stolen identity has dropped as much as 37 percent in the cybercrime underground: to $25 for a U.S. identity, and $40 for an overseas identity. For $300 or less, you can acquire credentials for a bank account with a balance of $70,000 to $150,000, and $400 is all it takes to get a rival or targeted business knocked offline with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)-for-hire attack. Meanwhile, ID theft and bank account credentials are getting cheaper because there is just so much inventory (a.k.a. stolen personal information) out there. Bots are cheap, too: 1,000 bots go for $20, and 15,000, for $250.

Submission + - This is how Amazon cleans its cloud servers when customers are done with them (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Brandon Butler
Brandon Butler writes: At AWS great lengths are taken to ensure its servers are clean, the company's chief information security officer Steve Schmidt says. In addition to the VMs being cleared when the customer finishes paying for them, the company also wipes them clean before giving them to another customer. "Test it yourself," Schmidt challenged users, inviting customers to check to see if a VM has any data on it when it's given to them. Even more extreme measures are taken when the hardware has reached its end of life.

For spinning disks, AWS uses a large magnet to degauss the hardware — meaning that the magnetic properties the disk uses as the basis for storage are rendered useless. Then, AWS chomps them up into minuscule chips. For solid state disks, the company can't use the degaussing method because it's not a magnetic-based storage process. So, instead the company shreds them until they are basically turned into dust-sized particles.

Submission + - Airline Pilots Rely Too Much on Automation Says Safety Panel

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Nearly all people connected to the aviation industry agree that automation has helped to dramatically improve airline safety over the past 30 years but Tom Costello reports at NBC News that according to a new Federal Aviation Administration report commercial airline pilots rely too much on automation in the cockpit and are losing basic flying skills. Relying too heavily on computer-driven flight decks now pose the biggest threats to airliner safety world-wide, the study concluded. The results can range from degraded manual-flying skills to poor decision-making to possible erosion of confidence among some aviators when automation abruptly malfunctions or disconnects during an emergency. “Pilots sometimes rely too much on automated systems," says the report adding that some pilots “lack sufficient or in-depth knowledge and skills” to properly control their plane’s trajectory. Basic piloting errors are thought to have contributed to the crash of an Air France Airbus A330 plane over the Atlantic in 2009, which killed all 228 aboard, as well as a commuter plane crash in Buffalo, NY, that same year. Tom Casey, a retired airline pilot who flew the giant Boeing 777, said he once kept track of how rarely he had to touch the controls on an auto-pilot flight from New York to London. From takeoff to landing, he said he only had to touch the controls seven times. "There were seven moments when I actually touched the airplane — and the plane flew beautifully,” he said. “Now that is being in command of a system, of wonderful computers that do a great job — but that isn’t flying." Real flying is exemplified by Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, says Casey, who famously landed his US Airways plane without engines on the Hudson River and saved all the passengers in what came to be known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.” The new report calls for more manual flying by pilots — in the cockpit and in simulations. The FAA says the agency and industry representatives will work on next steps to make training programs stronger in the interest of safety.

Submission + - Texas Drivers Stopped at Roadblock Asked for Saliva, Blood (nbcdfw.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at a police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood.

It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is spending $7.9 million on the survey over three years, said participation was "100 percent voluntary" and anonymous. The 'participants' hardly agree.

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