An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter will perform a close 'fly-by' of the Earth in a few hours. To assist with its radio and plasma wave experiment, the mission is asking amateur radio operators to send a 'Morse Code' message to the probe as it passes." The page has all the info you need: "The activity will begin at 18:00 UTC on October 9, 2013 and continue until 20:40 UTC. This page will clearly indicate when you should key up or key down to transmit 'HI' to Juno in Morse Code (see examples below). The Morse code pattern below can also act as a guide. The 'HI' message will be repeated every 10 minutes, beginning at 18:00, 18:10, 18:20, etc. "

An anonymous reader writes "Last week authorities shut down Silk Road, an online black market that made use of Tor to hide activity. They also arrested the site's primary operator, Ross Ulbricht, and seized his possessions. Now, an AP report indicates at least 8 more arrests have been made on people suspected to have sold drugs through the site. Four of the arrests happened in the U.K., two were in the U.S. and two were in Sweden. It looks like they're gearing up for more arrests, as well. Keith Bristow of Britain's National Crime Agency said, 'These latest arrests are just the start; there are many more to come.' Authorities are reportedly mining the site's customer review system, which contains months worth of transaction data, for further leads."

alphadogg writes "Vendor tests and very early 802.11ac customers provide a reality check on 'gigabit Wi-Fi' but also confirm much of its promise. Vendors have been testing their 11ac products for months, yielding data that show how 11ac performs and what variables can affect performance. Some of the tests are under ideal laboratory-style conditions; others involve actual or simulated production networks. Among the results: consistent 400M to 800Mbps throughput for 11ac clients in best-case situations, higher throughput as range increases compared to 11n, more clients serviced by each access point, and a boost in performance for existing 11n clients."

mattydread23 writes "Most gamification efforts fail. But when DirecTV wanted to encourage its IT staff to be more open about sharing failures, it created a massive internal game called F12. Less than a year later, it's got 97% participation and nearly everybody in the IT group actually likes competing. So what did DirecTV do right? The most important thing was to devote a full-time staffer to the game, and to keep updating it constantly."

McGruber writes "AllThingsD has the news that Hewlett-Packard has enacted a policy requiring most employees to work from the office and not from home. According to an undated question-and-answer document distributed to HP employees, the new policy is aimed at instigating a cultural shift that 'will help create a more connected workforce and drive greater collaboration and innovation.' The memo also said, 'During this critical turnaround period, HP needs all hands on deck. We recognize that in the past, we may have asked certain employees to work from home for various reasons. We now need to build a stronger culture of engagement and collaboration and the more employees we get into the office the better company we will be.' One major complication is that numerous HP offices don't have sufficient space to accommodate all of their employees. According to sources familiar with the company's operations, as many as 80,000 employees, and possibly more, were working from home in part because the company didn't have desks for them all within its own buildings."

KentuckyFC writes "The idea that every physical event is a computation has spread like wildfire through science. That has triggered an unprecedented interest in unconventional computing such as quantum computing, DNA computing and even the ability of a single-celled organism, called slime mold, to solve mazes. However, that may need to change now that physicists have worked out a formal way of distinguishing between systems that compute and those that don't. One key is the ability to encode and decode information. 'Without the encode and decode steps, there is no computation; there is simply a physical system undergoing evolution,' they say. That means computers must be engineered systems based on well understood laws of physics that can be used to predict the outcome of an abstract evolution. So slime mold fails the test while most forms of quantum computation pass."

Zott writes "The Boston Globe has a front-page story about Verizon's FiOS that recounts what many of us here in Boston and some surrounding urban areas know already: Verizon won't invest in the physical plant and actually offer the fiber optic Internet and TV service here in the 'hub of the universe.' This hasn't stopped Verizon from launching a new advertising campaign with Donnie Wahlberg (member of New Kids on the Block, actor, and well-known Boston native) standing in Copley Square and the Charlestown neighborhood touting the product. It goes even further, though — according to the Globe's article, '"This is New England, where people tell it straight," says Wahlberg... "No phonies, no fakers, no shortcuts."' Except for the shortcut in the fine print that's presumably in the ad somewhere: 'FiOS not available in all areas.'"

dcblogs writes "Gartner says new technologies are decreasing jobs. In the industrial revolution — and revolutions since — there was an invigoration of jobs. For instance, assembly lines for cars led to a vast infrastructure that could support mass production giving rise to everything from car dealers to road building and utility expansion into new suburban areas. But the "digital industrial revolution" is not following the same path. "What we're seeing is a decline in the overall number of people required to do a job," said Daryl Plummer, a Gartner analyst at the research firm's Symposium ITxpo. Plummer points to a company like Kodak, which once employed 130,000, versus Instagram's 13. The analyst believes social unrest movements, similar to Occupy Wall Street, will emerge again by 2014 as the job creation problem deepens." Isn't "decline in the overall number of people required to do a job" precisely what assembly lines effect, even if some job categories as a result require fewer humans? We recently posted a contrary analysis arguing that the Luddites are wrong.

linuxwrangler writes "NSA's new Utah data-center has been suffering numerous power-surges that have caused as much as $100,000 damage per event. The root cause is 'not yet sufficiently understood' but is suspected to relate to the site's 'inability to simultaneously run computers and keep them cool.' Frustrating the analysis and repair are 'incomplete information about the design of the electrical system' and the fact that "regular quality controls in design and construction were bypassed in an effort to fast track the Utah project."" Ars Technica has a short article, too, as does ITworld.