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Submission + - Securing The U.S. Electrical Grid

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress (CSPC) launched a project to bring together representatives from the Executive Branch, Congress, and the private sector to discuss how to better secure the U.S. electric grid from the threats of cyberattack, physical attack, electromagnetic pulse, and inclement weather. In this interview with Help Net Security, Dan Mahaffee, the Director of Policy at CSPC, discusses critical security challenges.

Submission + - China targets OS to take on likes of Microsoft, Google

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A desktop version of China's homegrown operating system may be ready in October, following concerns about U.S. surveillance and the launch of a monopoly probe of Microsoft, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday. From the article: "The operating system would first appear on desktop devices and later extend to smartphone and other mobile devices, Xinhua said, citing Ni Guangnan who heads an official OS development alliance established in March. Ni's comments were originally reported by the People's Post and Telecommunications News, an official trade paper run by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). 'We hope to launch a Chinese-made desktop operating system by October supporting app stores,' Ni told the trade paper. Some Chinese OS already existed, but there was a large gap between China's technology and that of developed countries, he added."

Submission + - Robo Brain Project Wants To Turn the Internet into a Robotic Hivemind (popsci.com) 1

Submitted by malachiorion
malachiorion writes: Researchers are force-feeding the internet into a system called Robo Brain, to make the world's robots smarter. Weirder still: Every word in that sentence is true. Robo Brain has absorbed a billion images and 120,000 YouTube videos so far, and aims to digest 10 times that within a year, in order to create machine-readable commands for robots—how to pour coffee, for example. I spoke to one of the researchers about this ridiculously ambitious, and pretty ingenious project, which could finally make household bots viable (in about 5 years...which is still pretty great). My story for Popular Science.

Submission + - Why There Shouldn't Be a Chess World Champion (slate.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An article at Slate makes the case that the time has come to stop crowning World Chess Champions. This week, challenger Magnus Carlsen is trying to take the title from reigning champion Viswanathan Anand. Despite currently holding the title, Anand is very much the underdog, which only serves to illustrate why the current system is broken. The article suggests measuring greatness the same way tennis does. Quoting: 'Here’s what Carlsen should do: Beat Anand for the title, and then work with FIDE to institutionalize four big tournaments as chess’s Grand Slams, simultaneously eliminating the title of world champion. Corporate funding for even major chess tournaments can come and go with frustrating regularity, meaning FIDE itself has to get involved. Perhaps the grand slam tournaments could be located in three cities permanently—Moscow, Amsterdam, and a Spanish locale such as Linares would be natural picks—with a fourth that would rotate from year to year. This would give chess the same clear and predictable yardstick for greatness that golf and tennis have instead of the extremely crude world champion benchmark.'

Submission + - Robots can learn to hold knives — and not stab humans (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by aurtherdent2000
aurtherdent2000 writes: We humans enjoy not having knives inside of us. Robots don’t know this, three laws be damned. Therefore it’s important for humans to explain this information to robots using careful training. Researchers at Cornell University develop co-active learning method where humans can correct robot's motions and it learns how to properly use objects such as knives. They use it for a robot performing grocery checkout tasks.

Submission + - Researches use computer generated 10 year old girl to catch online predators 1

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Dutch researchers conducted a 10 week sting, using a life like computer generated 10 year old Filipino girl named sweetie. During this time 20000 men contacted her, 1000 of these men offered money to remove clothing, 254 were from the US, 110 from the UK and 103 from India. Terre des Hommes launched a global campaign to stop "webcam sex tourism".

Submission + - Tesla Model S Top Speed: At Least 132 MPH On Autobahn (motorauthority.com)

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: There are few places in the world outside of a race track that you can safely--and legally-- go faster than 130 mph, but the Autobahn in Germany is one of them. After Tesla announced it'll offer a future special 'autobahn' tuning package to improve the Model S's high-speed driving characteristics, one owner took his car for a high-speed run on the infamous Germany highway. He hit a maximum speed of 212 km/h, or 132 mph. With 416 horsepower on tap and full torque available from a standstill thanks to the electric motor, the Model S went from 60 mph to 100 mph in less than five seconds. (Given the included video is mostly focused on the speedometer, lets hope the driver at least glanced at the road.) Only once the car passed 100 mph did its acceleration begin to slow.

Submission + - Robot that can open Fridge.....slowly. (wired.com)

Submitted by sneezinglion
sneezinglion writes: Well, if you ever wanted a robot that could predict your future actions, then this is the one for you.

This Robot can predict your future movements and in doing so can pour your beer for you.

Submission + - Planetary Resources to crowd fund its first Arkyd space telescope (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Planetary Resources, a company that proposes to capture and mine asteroids for profit, announced on May 29, 2013 that it has started a Kickstarter campaign to finance its first Arkyd space telescopes with which it intends to find likely asteroid candidates. The goal is to raise $1 million by the end of June, 2013, which would launch the telescope, build the interfaces, and set up a variety of education programs. The idea that the first commercial space telescope will further space and science education as well as the company's business plan as various levels of sponsorship will allow one to pay for schools and museums to be given time on the telescope.

Submission + - In Soviet Russia, Mammoth Clones You! (rt.com)

Submitted by kodiaktau
kodiaktau writes: While uncovering an adult female mammoth carcass, scientists discovered a baby Mammoth Elephant that still contains traces of blood and intact DNA. Interestingly the blood was still flowing at -10C. The discovery brings up the debate of cloning DNA and reproducing a mammoth in a laboratory setting.

Submission + - Robots Predict Future Human Actions

Submitted by aurtherdent2000
aurtherdent2000 writes: Wired reports that robots at Cornell personal robotics lab can predict future human actions, and perform pro-active tasks such as opening doors and pouring beer when you need it. They used Microsoft Kinect to track humans, and by looking up into a database of human activities using machine learning algorithms figure out what the human is likely to do in the next 1 to 10 seconds. Here is a Youtube video.

Submission + - Internet Traffic will hit 1.4 Zettabytes by 2017 (enterprisenetworkingplanet.com)

Submitted by darthcamaro
darthcamaro writes: According to a new forecast from Cisco By 2017, more traffic will traverse global networks than all prior "Internet years" combined: 1984 – 2012: 1.2 zettabytes and the 2017 Forecast: 1.4 zettabytes. Traffic is coming from lots of sources, including both PC and mobile devices.

"Traffic originating from portable devices is growing faster than anticipated, so that by 2017, 28 percent of Internet traffic will originate with Smartphones and Tablets," Arielle Sumits, principal analyst for the Cisco VNI Sumits said. "PC-originated traffic, on the other hand, will account for 61 percent of Internet traffic in 2017, down from 92 percent at the end of 2012."

Submission + - Possible Mammoth "Blood" found (phys.org) 1

Submitted by westtxfun
westtxfun writes: "Russian scientists claimed Wednesday they have discovered blood in the carcass of a woolly mammoth, adding that the rare find could boost their chances of cloning the prehistoric animal." As scientists unearthed the recent find, very dark blood flowed out from beneath the mammoth and the muscle tissue was red. This is the best-preserved specimen found so far and they are hopeful they can recover DNA and clone a mammoth.

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