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Space

Submission + - Super-Earth Discovered in Stars' Habitable Zone (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "The family of planets circling a relatively close dwarf star has grown to six, including a potential rocky world at least seven times more massive than Earth that is properly located for liquid water to exist on its surface, a condition believed to be necessary for life. Scientists added three new planets to three discovered in 2008 orbiting an orange star called HD 40307, which is roughly three-quarters as massive as the sun and located about 42 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. Of particular interest is the outermost planet, which is believed to fly around its parent star over 320 days, a distance that places it within HD 40307's so-called "habitable zone.""
Transportation

Submission + - Motorcycle App Helps You Ride Faster, Turn Sharper, Brake Harder

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Alexander George writes about a new app that takes the data from a smartphone’s accelerometers, GPS, and inclinometer to plot information for braking force, lean angles, speed, and on-track location onto Google Maps to shave precious milliseconds off each lap time in motorcyle races. Race Sense is designed to be a useful tool for someone who races for a living and a very fun toy for those who just like to brag about what lean angle they got at their ride day, and what top speed they reached down the main straight. Australian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Anthony West provided much of the R&D that went into tweaking the app. "With sponsorship's so hard to find and I need another way to survive. I spent some of my own money developing it with an Italian guy who also likes to ride himself, and who writes programs," says West who designed Race Sense to fulfill the needs of a genuine MotoGP racer. "Sometimes it's one second [separating] 20 people. If you adjust one little thing thinking about something in one corner you can lose four places.""
Government

Submission + - California Sex Offenders get Support from the EFF (wired.com) 2

Submitted by Bobfrankly1
Bobfrankly1 writes: The EFF sued to block portions of the approved Prop 35 today. Prop 35 requires sex offenders (including indecent exposure and non-internet offenses) to provide all of their online aliases to law enforcement. This would include e-mail addresses, screen and user names, and other identifiers used on the internet.
The heart of the matter as the EFF sees it, would be not only the chilling effect it would have on free speech, but also the propensity of these kind of laws to be applied to other (non-sex offending) people as well.

Submission + - ATM-enabled 'gone in 60 seconds' casino heist 1

Submitted by craighansen
craighansen writes: ATM machines specifically marketed for providing casino spending money in 60 seconds were the key to an million-dollar gone-in-60-seconds bank fraud. According to the FBI press release, defendant Ara Keshishyan and 13 co-conspirators opened accounts at Citibank with small initial deposits, and multiple withdrawals were made nearly simultaneously at ATM machines in several casinos in California and Nevada. They allegedly used much of the proceeds to gamble and enjoy casino "comps." According to another article, Citibank found the breach, closed the loophole, and notified law enforcement authorities. Because the were transactions below $10,000, in addition to the bank fraud and conspiracy charges, they got charged with "conspiracy to illegally structure financial transactions to avoid reporting requirements, which is punishable by up to five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine." A previous on-line journal named this caper Ocean's 14, even though Danny Ocean isn't among the list of defendants.
Science

Submission + - Nanoscale Device Makes Light Travel Infinitely Fast (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Physicists have developed a tiny device in which the index of refraction for visible light is zero—so that within it, visible light travels infinitely fast. The gizmo won't lead to instantaneous communication—the famous speed limit of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity remains in force—but it could have a variety of pretty cool uses, including serving as an element in a type of optical circuitry.
United States

Submission + - Puerto Rico Votes to become US State (cnn.com)

Submitted by who_stole_my_kidneys
who_stole_my_kidneys writes: In an overshadowed Election Day contest, Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood in a nonbinding referendum, marking the first time such an initiative garnered a majority.
Puerto Ricans were asked about their desires in two parts. First, by a 54% to 46% margin, voters rejected their current status as a U.S. commonwealth. In a separate question, 61% chose statehood as the alternative, compared with 33% for the semi-autonomous "sovereign free association" and 6% for outright independence.

Submission + - Puerto Rico votes to become 51st state (yahoo.com)

Submitted by DrEnter
DrEnter writes: Not really getting much attention in all of the presidential election coverage was the fact that Puerto Rico voted to become a U.S. State yesterday. The option has come up for a vote several times in the past, but never had much popular support until this year when it won with 53% of the vote choosing to change the government structure and a surprising 65% of the vote for choosing statehood as that change. The other choices were a sovereign-free association (31%) and independence (4%). Obama has already committed to supporting the will of the voters and there is currently no major opposition in either the House or the Senate. It looks like the U.S. may have a 51st state in a few months! Now this Wikipedia page can get some attention.
Medicine

Submission + - Do Recreational Drugs Help Programmers? (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "Among the winners of last night's election: marijuana users. Voters in both Washington and Colorado approved referenda that legalized marijuana for recreational use, though the drug remains illegal under federal law. There's been a long-standing debate among programmers as to whether recreational drugs, including pot and hallucinagens like LSD, can actually help programmers code. Don't forget, there was a substantial overlap between the wave of computer professionals who came of age in the '60s and that era's counterculture."
Businesses

Submission + - Elon Musk Will Usher in the Era of Electric Cars (vice.com)

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "There’s a reason why Elon Musk is being called the next Steve Jobs. Like Jobs, he’s a visionary, a super successful serial entrepreneur, having made his initial fortune with a company he sold to Compaq before starting Paypal. Like Jobs, he saved his beloved baby Tesla Motors from the brink of oblivion. Like Jobs, he’s a genius generalist with “huge steel balls” (according to his ex-wife) and a knack for paradigm-shifting industry disruption. Which means he’s also demanding. “Like Jobs, Elon does not tolerate C or D players,” SpaceX board member and early Tesla investor Steve Jurvetson told BusinessWeek.

But while Jobs was slinging multi-colored music players and touchable smartphones, Musk is building rocket ships and electric-powered supercars. It’s why his friends describe him as not just Steve Jobs but also John D. Rockefeller and Howard Hughes all wrapped in one. His friend Jon Favreau used Musk as the real-life inspiration for the big screen version of Tony Stark. Elon Musk is a badass."

Submission + - How CoreSite Survived Sandy (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, the combination of high winds, rain, and storm surges wreaked havoc on homes and businesses alike. With a data center on the Avenue of the Americas, CoreSite Realty escaped the worst the storm had to offer. But was it coincidence or careful planning?
Slashdot sat down for an interview with Billie Haggard, CoreSite’s senior vice president of data centers. He’s responsible for the design, construction, maintenance, facilities staffing and uptime, reliability and energy efficiency of CoreSite’s data centers. He described what it took to weather the worst weather to hit New York City in decades."

Submission + - 'World of Warcraft' candidate for Maine State Senate wins election (bangordailynews.com)

Submitted by
Teancum
Teancum writes: "Colleen Lachowicz, candidate for the State Senate District 25 of Maine, won the election yesterday against her opponent Thomas Martin. This race was notable in part because her World of Warcraft character that was mentioned earlier on Slashdot, where the Maine Republican Party turned her game playing into a significant issue. It is also notable that she was able to raise a total of $6,300 in campaign contributions from gamers who came to her defense in her successful campaign. The Maine GOP even tried to block these contributions where Lachowicz was cleared of any wrong doing and the investigation was dropped."
Data Storage

Submission + - Death of cassette tape is greatly exaggerated (torontosun.com) 1

Submitted by Meshach
Meshach writes: Interesting article from Toronto about how although they have been virtually abandoned for music cassette tapes are being actively used an an inexpensive storage medium. Companies looking to archive large amounts of data are always looking for a cheaper solution and cassette tapes are the newest fad. Apparently when access time is not a priority they are perfect and they require zero energy use when not in use.
Robotics

Submission + - Dragonfly spy drone fits in a hand Georgia Tech (suasnews.com)

Submitted by
garymortimer
garymortimer writes: "The TechJect Robot Dragonfly is a multi-engineering design. It requires everything from aerodynamics, machine design, mechatronics, electronics, communication systems, flight control software, user-interfaces and much more. We’ve put in a lot of work to bring harmony to chaos and bring the dragonfly to life; however, getting something robust enough to endure the elements, strong enough to outlast crashes and accidents; smart enough so everyone can operate them easily; and finally cheap enough so everyone can afford one, we have to professionally manufacture the robot bugs; which is an expensive proposition."
Businesses

Submission + - Pixar Names Main Studio Building for Steve Jobs

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Jordan Kahn reports that the main building on Pixar’s campus has been named in memory of Steve Jobs who actually played a big role in designing the building itself as CEO of Pixar. Pixar’s campus design originally separated different employee disciplines into different buildings – one for computer scientists, another for animators, and a third building for everybody else but according to Jobs’ recent biography, the headquarters was to be a place that “promoted encounters and unplanned collaborations.” Because Jobs was fanatic about unplanned collaborations, he envisioned a campus where these encounters could take place, and his design included a great atrium space that acts as a central hub for the campus. “Steve’s theory worked from day one,” says John Lasseter, Pixar’s chief creative officer. "I’ve never seen a building that promoted collaboration and creativity as well as this one.”"

Submission + - James Bond film 'Skyfall' inspired by Stuxnet virus (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: No smartphones. No exploding pens. No ejector seats. No rocket-powered submarines. “It’s a brave new world,” gadget-maker Q tells James Bond in the new film “Skyfall.” The new film, released on the 50th anniversary of the storied franchise, presents a gadget-free Bond fighting with both brains and brawn against a high-tech villain with computer prowess Bill Gates would be envious of. What inspired such a villain? "Stuxnet," producer Michael G. Wilson said. “There is a cyberwar that has been going on for some time, and we thought we’d bring that into the fore and let people see how it could be going on."
Politics

Submission + - Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win Read more: h (time.com)

Submitted by
concealment
concealment writes: "For all the praise Obama’s team won in 2008 for its high-tech wizardry, its success masked a huge weakness: too many databases. Back then, volunteers making phone calls through the Obama website were working off lists that differed from the lists used by callers in the campaign office. Get-out-the-vote lists were never reconciled with fundraising lists. It was like the FBI and the CIA before 9/11: the two camps never shared data. “We analyzed very early that the problem in Democratic politics was you had databases all over the place,” said one of the officials. “None of them talked to each other.” So over the first 18 months, the campaign started over, creating a single massive system that could merge the information collected from pollsters, fundraisers, field workers and consumer databases as well as social-media and mobile contacts with the main Democratic voter files in the swing states.

The new megafile didn’t just tell the campaign how to find voters and get their attention; it also allowed the number crunchers to run tests predicting which types of people would be persuaded by certain kinds of appeals. Call lists in field offices, for instance, didn’t just list names and numbers; they also ranked names in order of their persuadability, with the campaign’s most important priorities first. About 75% of the determining factors were basics like age, sex, race, neighborhood and voting record. Consumer data about voters helped round out the picture. “We could [predict] people who were going to give online. We could model people who were going to give through mail. We could model volunteers,” said one of the senior advisers about the predictive profiles built by the data. “In the end, modeling became something way bigger for us in ’12 than in ’08 because it made our time more efficient.”"
Canada

Submission + - Canadian Copyright Reform In Force: Expanded User Rights Now the Law (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This morning, the majority of Bill C-11, Canada's copyright reform bill, took effect, marking the most significant changes to Canadian copyright law in decades. Michael Geist summarizes the changes, which include expanded fair dealing, new protection for creators of user generated content, consumer exceptions such as time shifting, format shifting, and backup copies, and a cap on liability for non-commercial infringement.
Politics

Submission + - Dad, Can We Legalize Pot Now? (economist.com)

Submitted by
retroworks
retroworks writes: "Two state initiatives, in Washington state and Colorado, will legalize and tax marijuana sales. Both conservative and liberal media have covered the issue calmly. Will budget pressures finally lead to reform of marijuana laws in the USA? Legalize + Regulate + Tax = Profit!"

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