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Submission + - Military Dolphins Discover 1800s Torpedo (dvice.com)

Submitted by The0retical
The0retical writes: A couple of mine-sweeping dolphins dredged up what is known as a "Howell torpedo" dating from 1870 to 1889. Only 50 were ever produced this being the second example known to exist. The 11 foot long brass torpedo had a maximum range and speed of 400 yards at 25 knots. The new example will be displayed at Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Wash. along side the only other example.

Submission + - Apple Mobile Devices Cleared for Use on U.S. Military Networks (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by puddingebola
puddingebola writes: From the article, "The Pentagon cleared Apple Inc. (AAPL) devices for use on its networks, setting the stage for the maker of iPhones and iPads to compete with Samsung Electronics Co. and BlackBerry for military sales. The Defense Department said in a statement today that it has approved the use of Cupertino, California-based Apple’s products running a version of the iOS 6 mobile platform. The decision eventually may spur a three-way fight for a market long dominated by Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry."

Comment Re:California Lawmaker... (Score 5, Informative) 856

by The0retical (#43698411) Attached to: California Lawmaker Wants 3-D Printers To Be Regulated

This is the same person that wants:

Senate Bill 47 (Yee) expands the definition of “assault weapons” to BAN the future sale of rifles that have been designed/sold and are equipped to use the “bullet button” or similar device, requires NEW “assault weapon” registration of ALL those semi-auto rifles that are currently possessed to retain legal possession in the future, and subjects these firearms to all other “assault weapons” restrictions.

http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/SB47/2013

Senate Bill 108 (Yee) requires mandatory locked storage of firearms within a locked house regardless of whether anyone is present.

http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/SB108/2013

My impression of him is that he is a reactionary that responds to any situation in the most forceful way possible to please the pundits who are calling for action that the constituency doesn't actually want. He doesn't actually understand what he's legislating against in many situations, like as mentioned below the ban on video games for minors but because the pundits call for it something needs to be done.

The 3d printer is no different. Damn all the useful things that can be done with it he doesn't understand it and it can do one bad thing so ban it.

Submission + - First person saved by a police drone in Canada (theverge.com)

Submitted by AchilleTalon
AchilleTalon writes: As the US continues to grapple with the idea of letting drones fly through the country's airspace, our neighbors to the north have reported a new milestone for unmanned aerial technology: the first life saved using a drone. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the province of Saskatchewan announced yesterday that they successfully used the small Draganflyer X4-ES helicopter drone to locate and treat an injured man whose car had flipped over in a remote, wooded area in near-freezing temperatures. Zenon Dragan, president and founder of the Draganfly company that makes the drone, said in a statement: "to our knowledge, this is the first time that a life may have been saved with the use of a sUAS (small Unmanned Aerial System) helicopter."

Comment Re:how to ban guns in 4 states (Score 1) 632

by The0retical (#43588003) Attached to: New Smart Gun Company Hopes To Begin Production This Summer

It'll go away soon enough. I remember reading an article in PopSci probably 15 years ago about new technology that would embed a sensor in an officers ring so that if it moved more than a couple inches from his hand it would not fire.

I suppose technology has shifted to the point now where it is easier to miniaturize so that it is feasible without having a huge grip, however the only reason that this type of technology gets any attention at all is because, all conspiracy theory aside, it will give any state hostile towards guns an excuse to ban any gun without this technology. I have no doubt with how hard California makes it to stay within it's restrictions that they would be the ones leading the charge and expect the other 40 shall issue / no restriction (AK,VT) states to follow.

Submission + - Antares Rocket Launch Scrubbed at T-12 Minutes (thepowerbase.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This evening’s planned launch of the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket had to be canceled just 12 minutes before liftoff, due to the unexpected separation of the booster’s umbilical cable while the vehicle was on the launch pad. This is the first attempt to fly the Antares rocket, which is a commercial craft and direct competitor to the SpaceX Dragon 9.

Beyond being the first flight of a brand new commercial rocket, this mission is also notable for carrying three of NASA's PhoneSats; small satellites powered by Android running on Nexus smartphones. With each PhoneSat costing just $3,500, they're designed to test the limits of extremely low cost spacecraft, similar to the European STRaND-1 mission.

Since this is simply an orbital test, and the Antares will not be attempting to dock with the International Space Station, the launch window is highly flexible. It's anticipated Orbital Sciences will make another attempt at launching the Antares within 48 hours.

Comment Unintended Consequence (Score 1) 318

That's all well and fine, my S3 is currently running it, however the vast majority of users will not be able to install CWM or use ADB on their own even with a tutorial. It also has the consequence of voiding the warranty. Yes you could flash back but lets face it most people can barely operate Google Maps without throwing a fit much less flash a ROM.

If this succeeds what you are going to see is a slow down in the market. Manufacturers will not be able to push but a handful of phones every year because they will be expected to support them. So we, the power users, will go from having a new top tier phone every 6 months to maybe one a year, or maybe not at all because there will a monetary consequence to pushing the envelope with brand new hardware combination in every iteration.

The carriers are going to fight it tooth and nail as well because not only will they be forced to get the updates out in a timely fashion (looking at you Verizon), they will be required to utilize their sacred bandwidth, which they already charge too much for, to push the updates.

Submission + - DARPA Cyber Chief "Mudge" Zatko Going To Google (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: Noted hacker and innovator Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a project manager for cyber security research at DARPA for the past three years- will be setting up shop in the Googleplex, according to a post on his Twitter feed on Friday.
Zatko, who earned fame as a founding member of the early 1990s Boston-area hacker confab The L0pht and later as a division scientist at government contractor BBN Technologies, announced his departure from DARPA following a three-year stint as a Program Manager in DARPA’s Information Innovation Office on Friday. “Given what we all pulled off within the USG, let’s see if it can be done even better from outside. Goodbye DARPA, hello Google!” he Tweeted.
Technology

Gartner Says 3D Printers Will Cost Less Than $2,000 By 2016 170

Posted by samzenpus from the get-you-one dept.
colinneagle writes "Widespread adoption of 3D printing technology may not be that far away, according to a Gartner report predicting that enterprise-class 3D printers will be available for less than $2,000 by 2016. 3D printers are already in use among many businesses, from manufacturing to pharmaceuticals to consumers goods, and have generated a diverse set of use cases. As a result, the capabilities of the technology have evolved to meet customer needs, and will continue to develop to target those in additional markets, Gartner says."
The Military

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its 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' mainland."
Linux

Submission + - The end is nigh for The Linux Game Tome (happypenguin.org)

Submitted by Sodki
Sodki writes: The Linux Game Tome, one of the most important websites related to video gaming in GNU/Linux, will shut down on the 13th of April, according to a news post published on the website. The decision was made due to the "lack both the time and the ambition to do what is necessary to keep the site afloat", which has resulted in "spam clogging the forums, lack of updates and increasing brokenness of the site". This might not be the end, though. The maintainers of The Linux Game Tome will make available a dump of the games database, so that anyone interested can cook up a new and updated version of the website, and a worthwhile effort will be considered for a transfer of ownership of the domain. The current source code of the website, which is from 1999, will not be available because "it is not fit for human consumption".
Censorship

Draft Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Update Expands Powers and Penalties 141

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the did-you-really-expect-anything-else dept.
Despite calls to limit the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, it looks like Congress is planning to drastically expand the law and penalties. walterbyrd writes with a few of the major changes listed in the draft bill (22 pages): "Adds computer crimes as a form of racketeering. Expands the ways in which you could be guilty of the CFAA — including making you just as guilty if you plan to 'violate' the CFAA than if you actually did so. Ratchets up many of the punishments. Makes a very, very minor adjustment to limit 'exceeding authorized access.' Expands the definition of 'exceeding authorized access' in a very dangerous way. Makes it easier for the federal government to seize and forfeit anything." TechCrunch also reports rumors that the plan is to push the bill through quickly for approval with a number of other "cybersecurity" bills in mid-April.
Crime

Submission + - The ATF Isn't Convinced That 3D-Printed Guns Compare to the Real Thing (vice.com)

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: 3D-printing gun parts has taken off, thanks to the likes of Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed. While the technology adds a rather interesting wrinkle to the gun control debate, the ATF currently is pretty hands-off, saying that while 3D-printed gun technology has arrived, it's not good enough yet to start figuring out how to regulate it.

"We are aware of all the 3D printing of firearms and have been tracking it for quite a while," Earl Woodham, spokesperson for the ATF field office in Charlotte, said. "Our firearms technology people have looked at it, and we have not yet seen a consistently reliable firearm made with 3D printing."

A reporter called the ATF's Washington headquarters to get a better idea of what it took to make a gun "consistently reliable," and program manager George Semonick said the guns should be "made to last years or generations." In other words, because 3D-printed guns aren't yet as durable as their metal counterparts, the ATF doesn't yet consider them as much of a concern.
Music

Scientists Study Getting an Unwanted Tune Out of Your Head 219

Posted by samzenpus from the co-stan-za dept.
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Richard Gray reports that scientists have found a way to help anyone plagued by those annoying tunes that lodge themselves inside our heads and repeat on an endless loop — when snippets of a catchy song inexplicably play like a broken record in your brain. The solution can be to solve some tricky anagrams to force the intrusive music out of your working memory allowing the music to be replaced with other more amenable thoughts. 'The key is to find something that will give the right level of challenge,' says Dr Ira Hyman, a music psychologist at Western Washington University who conducted the research. 'If you are cognitively engaged, it limits the ability of intrusive songs to enter your head.' Hyman says that the problem, called involuntary memory retrieval, is that something we can do automatically like driving or walking means you are not using all of your cognitive resource, so there is plenty of space left for that internal jukebox to start playing. Dr Vicky Williamson, a music psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, says that the most likely songs to get stuck are those that are easy to hum along to or sing and found that that Lady Gaga was the most common artist to get stuck in people's heads, with four of her catchy pop songs being the most likely to become earworms – Alejandro, Bad Romance, Just Dance and Paparazzi. Other surveys have reported Abba songs such as Waterloo, Changes by David Bowie or the Beatles' Hey Jude."

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