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Submission + - Consortium roadmap shows 100TB hard drives possible by 2025 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: An industry consortium made up by leading hard disk drive manufacturers shows they expect the areal density of platters to reach 10 terabits per square inch by 2025, which is more than 10 times what it is today. At that density, hard disk drives could conceivably hold up to 100TB of data. Key to achieving greater bit density is Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and Bit Patterned Media Recording (BPMR). While both HAMR and BPMR will increase density, the combination of both technologies in 2021 will drive it to the 10Tbpsi level, according to the Advanced Storage Technology Consortium (ASTC).

Submission + - Sony Comes To A Screeching Halt Targeted By Massive Ransomware Hack (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: It appears that Sony has become the victim of a massive ransomware hack which has resulted in the company basically shutting down. An unnamed source has noted this, claiming that the company shut down after its computers in New York and around the nation were infiltrated. The source is an ex-employee of Sony Pictures who has a friend that still works for the company. According to the source's friend, allegedly, every computer in Sony's New York Office, and every Sony Pictures office across the nation, bears an image from the hacker with the headline "Hacked By #GOP" which is then followed by a warning. The hacker, or group, claims to have obtained corporate secrets and has threatened to reveal those secrets at 11:00 PM GMT tonight if Sony doesn't meet their demands. What those demands are and what is #GOP has yet to be determined.

Submission + - Senate Republicans are getting ready to declare war on patent trolls (vox.com) 2

Submitted by XxtraLarGe
XxtraLarGe writes: Regardless of party affiliation, I think this is probably one thing most of us on Slashdot can applaud:

Republicans are about to take control of the US Senate. And when they do, one of the big items on their agenda will be the fight against patent trolls.

In a Wednesday speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) outlined a proposal to stop abusive patent lawsuits. "Patent trolls – which are often shell companies that do not make or sell anything – are crippling innovation and growth across all sectors of our economy," Hatch said.

Submission + - Does being first still matter in America? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: At the supercomputing conference, SC14, this week, a U.S. Dept. of Energy offical said the government has set a goal of 2023 as its delivery date for an exascale system. It may be taking a risky path with that amount of lead time because of increasing international competition. There was a time when the U.S. didn't settle for second place. President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous "we choose to go to the moon" speech in 1962, and seven years later a man walked on the moon. The U.S. exascale goal is nine years away. China, Europe and Japan all have major exascale efforts, and the government has already dropped on supercomputing. The European forecast of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was so far ahead of U.S. models in predicting the storm's path that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was called before Congress to explain how it happened. It was told by a U.S. official that NOAA wasn't keeping up in computational capability. It's still not keeping up. Cliff Mass, a professor of meteorology at the University of Washington, wrote on his blog last month that the U.S. is "rapidly falling behind leading weather prediction centers around the world" because it has yet to catch up in computational capability to Europe. That criticism followed the $128 million recent purchase a Cray supercomputer by the U.K.'s Met Office, its meteorological agency.

Submission + - Organic molecules detected on comet by Philae (bbc.com)

Submitted by Shortguy881
Shortguy881 writes: Carbon-containing "organics" are the basis of life on Earth and may give clues to chemical ingredients delivered to our planet early in its history. The compounds were picked up by a German-built instrument designed to "sniff" the comet's thin atmosphere. Other analyses suggest the comet's surface is largely water-ice covered with a thin dust layer. The European Space Agency (Esa) craft touched down on the Comet 67P on 12 November after a 10-year journey.

Submission + - Rooftop solar to reach price parity in the U.S. by 2016 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: The cost of rooftop solar-powered electricity will be on par with prices of coal-powered energy and other conventional sources in all 50 U.S. states in just two years, a leap from today where PV energy has price parity in only 10 states, according to Deutsche Bank's leading solar industry analyst. The sharp decline in solar energy costs is the result of increased economies of scale leading to cheaper photovoltaic panels, new leasing models and declining installation costs, Deutsche Bank's Vishal Shah stated in a recent report. The cost of solar-generated electricity in the top 10 states for capacity ranges from 11-15 cents per kilowatt hour (c/kWh), compared to the retail electricity price of 11-37 c/kWh. Amit Ronen, a former Congressional staffer behind legislation that created an investment tax credit for solar installations, said one of the only impediments to decreasing solar electricity prices are fees proposed by utilities on customers who install solar and take advantage of net metering, or the ability to sell excess power back to utilities.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Forget the app; Microsoft rolls out Skype for Web - Computerworld (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows
Forget the app; Microsoft rolls out Skype for Web
Computerworld
Microsoft announced today that it's launching a beta of Skype for the Web, allowing browser-based video chats that don't require a separate app. "We've made Skype available on computers, mobile phones, TVs and even games consoles," wrote Jonathan...
Microsoft Rolls Out Skype for Web BetaPC Magazine
Microsoft's new Skype ad sings the praises of the MacBookCNET
Skype for Web (beta): App-free calls coming soon to Safarituaw.com
Maximum PC-Mac Rumors-TIME
all 46 news articles

Submission + - Nvidia Shield Tablet Gets Android Lollipop Update, Half Life 2 EP1 And GRID (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Nvidia's Shield Tablet is only a few months old, but Nvidia is already updating the device with a freshly minted OS, a refreshed Shield Hub and access to the company's newly upgraded GRID Game Streaming service. A number of new Tegra K1 optimized games are arriving as well, as well as a new game bundle which includes Half Life 2 Episode 1. The SHIELD Tablet Android Lollipop update will feature Android's new "material design" interface and improved app performance, according to Nvidia. The update will also come preloaded with a new version of Nvidia's own Dabbler drawing and painting app (Dabbler 2.0). In addition to a new interface inspired by Lollipop's design language, Dabbler 2.0 will offer full support for layers and it'll allow users to share their sessions over Twitch. Previously, accessing the Nvidia's GRID beta meant streaming games from a GRID server cluster on the west coast, but Nvidia is expanding the service with server clusters located in Virginia, Europe and Asia. For the best possible user experience, streaming games from the cloud must incur minimal latency, and adding more servers in strategic locations not only affords Nvidia greater capacity, but minimizes latency as well. Nvidia says the GRID service will be available in North America this month, Western Europe in December and Asia sometime next year. The company's GRID service gives gamers access to 20 top titles currently, including Batman Arkham City, Borderlands 2 and Psychonauts, among others, and Nvidia is planning to add new games every week.

Submission + - Data Center Study Reveals Top 5 SMART Stats that Correlate to Drive Failures (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Backblaze, which has taken to publishing data on hard drive failure rates in its data center, has just released data from a new study of nearly 40,000 spindles revealing what it said are the top 5 SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) values that correlate most closely with impending drive failures. The study also revealed that many SMART values that one would innately consider related to drive failures, actually don't relate it it at all. Gleb Budman, CEO of Backblaze, said the problem is that the industry has created vendor specific values, so that a stat related to one drive and manufacturer may not relate to another. "SMART 1 might seem correlated to drive failure rates, but actually it's more of an indication that different drive vendors are using it themselves for different things," Budman said. "Seagate wants to track something, but only they know what that is. Western Digital uses SMART for something else — neither will tell you what it is."

Submission + - Rejection: Guy Proposes With 99 iPhone 6s And She Says No Thanks (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Ah, nothing says "I love you" like 99 iPhone 6 handsets arranged in a heart? Unfortunately, a Chinese programmer somehow came up with the not-so-brilliant idea of spending around $82,000 on the aforementioned smartphones as part of a horribly conceived marriage proposal on November 11, otherwise known and celebrated as "Singles' Day" in China. The poor fellow (literally, the dude might be poor after spending two years worth of salary on the 99 iPhones) gathered a group of friends to stand around in a circle as he and his girlfriend took center stage inside the iPhones arranged in a giant heart. We're not sure what that many smartphones have to do with marriage, and apparently the gesture was lost on his girlfriend as well. She answered "No," and in that instant, she also provided hilarious fodder for the internet. However, the best observation might be, one could say that "he now has 99 problems and a wife ain't one."

Submission + - HP Does Not Plan On Making a Desktop 3D Printer (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: After announcing its first industrial 3D printing machine last week, HP this week expounded on its plans for the technology saying it sees it as a method for making production parts in limited runs and one-off parts. What it doesn't ever see happening is a desktop model of the printer for the consumer market. During a live webcast this yesterday, Steve Nigro, senior vice president of HP's Inkjet and Graphics Solutions Businesses, said the new Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer will likely be built in varying sizes to address any number of production applications needed by manufacturers and service providers. Some of those new models will likely be in collaboration with partners who want to build machines for specific industries. But, the printer will play in the $100,000 to $1 million 3D printer market, not machines for home use. The printer, he said, will be ten times faster and 50% cheaper than industrial 3D printers on the market today. The machine combines the attributes of binder jet printing, where a liquid fusing agent is selectively deposited to join the powder materials, and sintering technology, where layer upon layer of powder material is melted and fused together with heat.

Submission + - Net Neutrality Alone Won't Solve ISP Throttling Abuse, Here's Why (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Net neutrality is an attractive concept, particularly if you've followed the ways the cable and telco companies have gouged customers in recent years, but only to a limited extent. There are two problems with net neutrality as its commonly proposed. First, there's the fact that not all traffic prioritization is bad all of the time. Video streams and gaming are two examples of activities that require low-latency packet delivery to function smoothly. Email and web traffic can tolerate significantly higher latencies, for example. Similarly, almost everyone agrees that ISPs have some responsibility to control network performance in a manner that guarantees the best service for the most number of people, or that prioritizes certain traffic over others in the event of an emergency. These are all issues that a careful set of regulations could preserve while still mandating neutral traffic treatment in the majority of cases, but it's a level of nuance that most discussions of the topic don't touch. The larger and more serious problem with net neutrality as its often defined, however, is that it typically deals only with the "last mile," or the types and nature of the filtering an ISP can apply to your personal connection.

Submission + - Some Researchers Agree With Musk That A.I. Could Be Dangerous (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Researchers from some of the top U.S. universities said Elon Must wasn't so far off the mark when he said last week that artificial intelligence poses a threat to humans. "If I were to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that... With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon." Musk said at an M.I.T. symposium . Musk's comments came after he tweeted in early August that AI is "potentially more dangerous than nukes." Andrew Moore, dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, Musk has "a valid concern and it's really an interesting one. It's a remote, far future danger but sometime we're going to have to think about it." AI researchers disagree on when the technology will be available, some saying 20 years, others believe 50 or, even 100 years away. Stuart Russell, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the UC Berkeley, compared AI research to that of nuclear fusion. "The first thing you think of is containment. You need to get energy out without creating a hydrogen bomb. The same would be true for AI. If we don't know how to control AI it would be like making a hydrogen bomb."

Submission + - If Ebola's a problem here, just imagine it in India (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: As the U.S. has discovered, it just takes a few cases of Ebola to turn things upside down. Months into the outbreak in West Africa, federal and state officials are still fighting over quarantine policies and travel bans, and reacting in disruptive fashion to the threat. But an Ebola outbreak in India, for instance, could create problems in the U.S. because of its role as a major IT services provider. "Ebola cases showing up in urban India area would be a nightmare," said Andrew Schroeder, director of research and analysis for Direct Relief, a nonprofit that provides medical assistance to areas in need of help. Dense populations, living in slums with poor sanitation and inadequate medical help, would complicate an Ebola fight. Everest Group, an outsourcing research firm said, that in India, IT organizations often make bus transportation available to team members, and it’s easy to imagine an Ebola-related scenario in which bus transportation is shut down. Working from home may not be an option, since lack of connectivity and security concerns "often make working remotely from homes not possible," said Marvin Newell, a partner at Everest. Craig Wright, a partner at outsourcing consulting firm Pace Harmon, said that a valid response to any such Ebola outbreak would be similar to a tsunami, "where access to facilities and resources within a region may be denied for an extended period of time."

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