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Submission + - Northrop Grumman Gives Early Look at its XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane Design (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Northrop Grumman, in partnership with Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, has unveiled the preliminary design it is developing as part of DARPA’s XS-1 Spaceplane project. Looking like a windowless update of a 1960s Dyna Soar orbiter, it’s the next step in producing launch systems that will dramatically reduce the costs of getting into orbit.

Submission + - gcc LTO reduces firefox package size by 50% (gnu.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Link Time Optimization used to be a lot of promise for little gain, and typically unable to deal with packages in the MSLOC range. Seemingly no longer. Reported in gcc's bugzilla is an impressive result for firefox:
'Firefox since version 30 as well as Thunderbird since version 31 both compile fine with LTO enabled without the need of any additional patches. The package size was reduced by 51% (firefox ~420MB -> ~207MB) and 59% (thunderbird ~480MB -> ~200MB). Both programs work as intended, no crashes or unexpected behaviour so far.'
Has time come to rebuild the world using LTO ?

Submission + - Bioengineered Opiates Don't Require Poppy Plants

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: Opiate drugs are on their way to being fully synthesized. Drug makers will no longer have to rely on a plant, the same basic organism that's delivered narcotics to humans since the Neolithic, for the most basic raw materials of opiate painkillers.
Fields of flowering poppies are out, and bioengineered microorganisms are in, at least according to a new paper published in Nature Chemical Biology, which describes a new method of producing opiates with help from a genetically tweaked version of regular baker's yeast.

Submission + - Animal Welfare is Actually Worse in Accredited Laboratories (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The international gold standard of laboratory animal care may have lost a bit of its luster. Labs accredited by the United States’ only independent certifier of research animal welfare violate national animal welfare guidelines more frequently than do unaccredited facilities, a study has found. As both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense (DOD) waive certain inspection requirements for labs vetted by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International, the findings may force a rethink of how lab animal welfare is overseen in the United States and other countries
Government

Submission + - UK Petition Calls for 4G Licence Money To Go On Science And Tech (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "British celebrities in science and technology, including Brian Cox and Ben Goldacre are leading a petition calling for the proceeds of the 4G licence auction to go on science and technology. The auction, which is going ahead after years of delay, could raise billions — the petition says this money should be invested in ways to boos Britain's tech-based industry."
News

Submission + - There Are 26 Nuclear Power Plants in Hurricane Sandy's Path (vice.com)

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "Hurricane Sandy is about to ruin a bunch of people’s Mondays. In New York City alone, the storm has already shut down public transportation, forced tens of thousands to relocate to higher ground and compelled even more office jockeys to work from home. (Okay, that last part might not be so bad, especially for the folks that don’t actually have to work at all.) But if it knocks out power to any of the 26 nuclear power plants that lie directly in its path, the frankenstorm of the century will ruin Tuesday, too. Heck, a nuclear meltdown would probably screw up the entire week."
Security

Submission + - Researchers: Your GPU's "Fingerprint" Could Lead to New Security Methods

Submitted by
Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: "Researchers have found that each graphic processing unit (GPU) has a unique identifier that could be tied to a person or PC. This has potential upsides for security and authentication and downsides.

The Physically Unclonable Functions Found in standard PC Components Project, or PUFFIN, say that every GPU has a unique and defining set of characteristics that make each GPU as unique and individual as a snowflake or a fingerprint.

These differences are known as a physical unclonable functions (PUF); they can only be detected by software and by knowing where to look. This is how the PUFFIN group found the uniqueness to GPU memory in the first place, since it was looking for PUFs....

What this means is the 0s and 1s of SRAM have a unique arrangement to each GPU — which enables your GPU to become your authenticator. A WoW gamer won't need the separate physical authenticator any more, as her GPU can handle authentication for them.

In this article, Andy Patrizio speaks with several experts about the advantages and disadvantages of GPUs for two-factor authentication. Though, he points out, the research is still underway."

Android

Submission + - Google announces $299 Nexus 4 smartphone and $399 Nexus 10 tablet (bgr.com) 1

Submitted by TheBoat
TheBoat writes: Surprise, surprise. It looks like Hurricane Sandy can’t hold Google down, as the company has just gone ahead and unveiled the Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet even though its press conference was canceled. Nexus 4 specs include a 4.7-inch True HD IPS Plus display with 1,280 x 768-pixel resolution, an 8-megapixel camera, a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM and Android 4.2. The phone starts at a shockingly affordable $299 without any contract or subsidies, and it will launch in the United States on November 3rd.

The Samsung-built Nexus 10 tablet sports a 2,560 x 1,600-pixel display with a pixel density of 300 PPI, a dual-core 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos chipset, 2GB of RAM, NFC and a 5-megapixel camera. Pricing starts at $399 with 16GB of storage and tops out at $499 for the 32GB model, and both will launch on November 3rd alongside the Nexus 4.

Both devices will be available through the Google Play store.
Education

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Next career steps for developer turning engineer

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I currently work as a "practice lead" at a medium-sized consulting firm, which is to say I manage a team of 6-10 PHP/LAMP programmers to build enterprise CMSs and applications. While I enjoy what I do, I've recently been considering a second bachelors degree and really a new career in engineering. Specifically I'm interested in the combination of mechanics, electronics, and computing, which is currently pointing me towards the mechatronics field of engineering. My goal is to be able to understand, from start to finish, how an "electronic" product is designed, manufactured, and brought to market. My challenge is finding the right program; I have 2 masters degrees (statistics and an MBA) but lack the core math/physics knowledge that any engineering student should grasp. I have 10+ years experience programming (Perl, Python, PHP, VB, nothing in C or C++) and needless to say would like to learn more CS theory. So my question /.: What programs/disciplines do you recommend? What should I study on my own vs. what to study in the university? What skills should I expect to learn on-the-job vs. in the university?
Open Source

Submission + - Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro (adafruit.com)

Submitted by
ptorrone
ptorrone writes: "Open-source hardware company Adafruit released a Linux Raspberry Pi distro for hardware hackers and teaching electronics. This distro comes with SPI, I2C, & OneWire WiFi. It also has some things to make overall hacking easier such sshd on startup (with key generation on first boot) andBonjour (so you can simply ssh raspberrypi.local from any computer on the local network. It's called Occidentalis v0.1. Rubus occidentalis(the black raspberry) derived fromRaspbian Wheezy and available for download here."

Submission + - Cortana: IRC-style Scripting for Armitage and Metasploit (strategiccyber.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I'm the developer of Armitage, a Metasploit Framework GUI that allows a team of hackers to collaborate on an engagement. Inspired by my days on IRC in the 1990s, I wondered what would happen if I added bots to this collaborative hacking setup. At DEFCON 20, I announced Cortana, a scripting language to write red team bots and extend Armitage with new features. Cortana is a glue language for security practitioners. With Cortana, you may automate the use of Metasploit Framework modules, integrate external tools, respond to events, and modify the Armitage user interface to reflect your hacking process. I look forward to seeing what the community does with this.

Submission + - New facts about Civilization V (amazines.com)

Submitted by smecenalimanu
smecenalimanu writes: One of the vital points in Civilization 5 is cooperation with other empires . It is wise choice to trade with resources and luxuries and to make research pacts with other nations . Second important thing is to have good contacts with city-state . There are 3 kinds of them : Militaristic city — they have big armies . If you are their friend or partner , you will receive military unit every few turns .
Apple

Submission + - Apple comes clean, admits to doing market research (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: In an interview with Fortune a few years ago, Steve Jobs explained that Apple never does market research. Rather, they simply preoccupy themselves with creating great products.

On Monday, Apple's Greg Joswiak — the company's VP of Product Marketing — submitted a declaration to the Court explaining why documents relating to Apple's market research and strategy should be sealed.

Every month, Apple surveys iPhone buyers and Joswiak explains what Apple is able to glean from these surveys. And as you might expect, Apple conducts similar surveys with iPad buyers.

Apple wants all of these tracking studies sealed. Joswiak explains that if a competitor were to find out what drives iPhone purchases — whether it be FaceTime, battery life, or Siri — it would serve as an unfair competitive edge to rival companies. Further, competitors, as it stands today, have to guess as to which demographics are most satisfied with Apple products.

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