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Submission + - BOOM: Team Fortress 2, Oculus Rift, and Omnidirectional Treadmill Equal Big Fun (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: The concept of gaming accessories may have just been taken to a whole new level. A company called Virtuix is developing the Omni, which is essentially a multidirectional treadmill that its creators call “a natural motion interface for virtual reality applications.” The company posted a video showing someone playing Team Fortress 2 and using the Omni along with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. You can see in the video how much running and movement this fellow performs. With something like the Omni in your living room, you'd likely get into pretty good shape in no time. Instead of Doritos and Mountain Dew, folks might have to start slamming back Power Bars and Gatorade for all night gaming sessions.

Submission + - Could a nuclear-armed Iran be contained? (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Kingston Reif with a thoughtful, and controversial, article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, asking whether Obama has made a long-term error in declaring that the US will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. Comparisons are drawn between the Iranian crisis and JFK's response in the Cuban Missile Crisis (50th anniversary of which is this year). Great piece, provocative thinking.

Submission + - Google fiber coming to Austin (google.com)

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: Google Fiber will roll out in Austin with the first homes hooked up in mid 2014. The delay is due to the fact that a whole new fiber network will be deployed for the service. This will only be deployed in the Austin City limits. Google says in early 2014 they will allow people in Austin register their address for service. Google will deploy to neighborhoods with the most interest. Google Fiber will also start hiring employees soon. Wanna be the most popular guy in town? Become the GF man!

Submission + - China Announces Plans to Export Greenhouse Gases to Terraform Mars (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As an extension of China’s $16 billion plan to combat air pollution in its cities, today the CNSA announced an ambitious plan to export the nation’s emissions to Mars. The unprecedented plan would greatly reduce emissions on Earth while warming the climate on Mars.
Movies

Submission + - NASA Trailer To Be Shown Before Star Trek: Into Darkness (theverge.com)

Submitted by Soulskill
Soulskill writes: Tired of seeing ads for cars and soda before the films you watch at the theater? Well, a successful crowdfunding campaign at IndieGogo will see a trimmed down version of NASA's 'We Are Explorers' video aired before showings of the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness in theaters all over the country. "Most people recognize space as a key expression of our character. They know our space programs as a globally recognized brand of ingenuity. The recently landed Mars Curiosity Rover was the latest reminder that space systems are the crown jewels of our scientific and technical prowess. Less known is the indispensable value space systems bring to our everyday lives. Space provides irreplaceable capabilities for defense, public health, finance, medicine, energy, agriculture, transportation, development and countless other fields. Investments in space programs are precisely about improving and protecting life on Earth. ... By funding this campaign, we can remind students and the general public that our nation's space agency is working hard on the next era of exploration." The campaign's funding goal was reached in just six days — their stretch goal will increase the number of theaters for the clip from 59 screens to 750. The movie comes out on May 17th.
NASA

Submission + - NASA Asteroid Capture Mission to Be Proposed in 2014 Budget (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "Included in President Obama's 2014 budget request will be a $100 million line item for NASA for a mission to capture and bring an asteroid to a high orbit around the moon where it will be explored by asteroinauts. Whether the $2.6 billion mission is a replacement or a supplement to the president's planned human mission to an asteroid is unclear. The proposal was first developed by the Keck Institite in April, 2012 and has achieved new impetus due to the meteor incident over Russia and new fears of killer asteroids."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Obama signs 'Monsanto Protection Act' Into Law (rt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Despite over 250,000 people's names on a petition asking for a veto of the the spending bill, Obama on Thursday signed into law HR 933 which includes a rider referred to as the "Monsanto Protection Act." This provision "effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of GMO or GE crops and seeds, no matter what health consequences from the consumption of these products may come to light in the future... With HR 933 now a law, however, the court system no longer has the right to step in and protect the consumer."
News

Submission + - United States begins stealth bombing runs over South Korea. (nytimes.com)

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: The New York Times is reporting that the United States of America has started flying B-2 Stealth Bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea during raised tensions in the region. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the US Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The US Military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The US also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting it's allies in the region.

The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' main land.
Google

Submission + - Google pledges not to sue open source software, unless first attacked (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In it's pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google’s patents covered by the pledge to other technologies.
Patents

Submission + - Texas judge tosses out patent claim against Linux (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "A federal judge in Texas, presiding over a district notorious for favoring patent trolls, has summarily dismissed all claims relating to a case brought by Uniloc USA against Rackspace for allegedly infringing upon Linux patents. Red Hat defended Rackspace in the matter and issued a press release saying: “In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc’s claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter.”"
AI

Submission + - A German Parking Garage Parks Your Car for You (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by moon_unit2
moon_unit2 writes: Tech Review has a story about a garage in Ingolstadt, Germany, where the cars park themselves. The garage is an experiment set up by Audi to explore ways that autonomous technology might practically be introduced; most of the sensor technology is built into the garage and relayed to the cars rather than inside the cars themselves. It seems that carmakers see the technology progressing in a slightly different way to Google, with its fleet of self-driving Prius. From the piece: “It’s actually going to take a while before you get a really, fully autonomous car,” says Annie Lien, a senior engineer at the Electronics Research Lab, a shared facility for Audi, Volkswagen, and other Volkswagen Group brands in Belmont, California, near Silicon Valley. “People are surprised when I tell them that you’re not going to get a car that drives you from A to B, or door to door, in the next 10 years.”

Submission + - Creationist Bets $10k Against Challengers To Literal Interpretation of Genesis (yahoo.com)

Submitted by HungWeiLo
HungWeiLo writes: A California man who believes the literal interpretation of the Bible is real is offering $10,000 to anyone who can successfully debunk claims made in the book of Genesis in front of a judge.

Joseph Mastropaolo, the man behind this challenge, is to put $10,000 of his own money into an escrow account. His debate opponent would be asked to do the same. They would then jointly agree on a judge based on a list of possible candidates. Mastropaolo said that any evidence presented in the trial must be “scientific, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated."

For his part, Mastropaolo has a Ph.D. in kinesiology and writes for the Creation Hall of Fame website, which is helping to organize the minitrial. It’s also not the first such trial he’s tried to arrange. A previous effort, known as the “Life Science Prize,” proposed a similar scenario. Mastropaolo includes a list of possible circuit court judges to oversee the trial and a list of those he challenged to take part on the evolutionary side of the debate.

Anyone up for winning $20,000?
Java

Submission + - Everything About Java 8 (techempower.com)

Submitted by reygahnci
reygahnci writes: I found a comprehensive summary of the developer-facing changes coming in Java 8 including: improvements to interfaces, functional interfaces, lambdas, functions, streams, parallels, date/time improvements, and more. The article includes example code with realistic examples of use as well as explaining the reasoning behind some of the choices made by the developers who are working on Java 8.
Cellphones

Submission + - North Korea Halts Internet Access After One Month (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "After just one month online, North Korea has pulled the plug on its only 3G data network, which was previously made available for tourists to access the Internet starting on Feb. 22. The North Korean government did not explain why its 3G network has been shut off, but given the raised level of international interest in the country’s activities (the country is facing UN sanctions after its third nuclear test last month) and how it severed its final communication line with South Korea on Wednesday, the government likely had a change of heart about its loosening communication restrictions. That said, as with most things in North Korea, we may never know the real answer."

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