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Submission + - Small World Spotted Far Beyond Pluto (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Astronomers have detected a small world more than twice as remote as Pluto, lying 12 billion kilometers, or 83 AU, from the sun. The new object is the first ever found whose orbit resembles that of Sedna, a far-off body that never gets close to Neptune's path. The new world is roughly 450 kilometers across, just one-fifth Pluto's diameter. Both Sedna and its small sidekick probably belong to the inner part of the Oort cloud, the frigid reservoir of long-period comets that can dazzle us when they dash toward the sun, and suggest that many other far-flung objects await discovery.

Submission + - Gameover Malware Targets Job Seekers (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: A new variant of the Gameover computer Trojan is targeting job seekers and recruiters by attempting to steal log-in credentials for Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com accounts. Like the Zeus banking malware on which it is based, Gameover can steal log-in credentials and other sensitive information by injecting rogue Web forms into legitimate websites when accessed from infected computers. 'A computer infected with Gameover ZeuS will inject a new 'Sign In' button [into the Monster.com sign-in page], but the page looks otherwise identical,' security researchers from antivirus firm F-Secure said Tuesday in a blog post.

Submission + - GNOME 3.12 released (gnome.org)

Submitted by Sri Ramkrishna
Sri Ramkrishna writes: Like clockwork, the next version of GNOME has been released with updated applications, bugfixes and so forth. People can look forward to faster loading time and a little more performance than before. There is a video that is also been created to highlight the release! Check it out!

Submission + - California's anti-game senator Leland Yee arrested on corruption, bribery charge (gamespot.com)

Submitted by g1nG3Rj0urNAl157
g1nG3Rj0urNAl157 writes: Democratic California state senator Leland Yee, an outspoken critic of the video game industry, has been arrested on bribery and corruption charges. The FBI nabbed the politician this morning during a sting operation, sources have told NBC Bay Area. Yee represents District 8, which includes video game development hotbeds like San Francisco and San Mateo County. Gamers know him as the man who put forth the much-publicized violent game law that the United States Supreme Court struck down in 2011.

Submission + - Tesla's Fight With Car Dealers Could Help Decide the Next Presidential Election

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Marcus Wohlsen writes that the most recent ban against Tesla selling cars directly from the company instead of through third-party dealers was enacted in New Jersey with the support of Gov. Chris Christie, a possible contender for the GOP nomination. That prompted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Christie rival, to heartily defend Tesla’s direct sales model. “Customers should be allowed to buy products that fit their need," says Rubio, "especially a product that we know is safe and has consumer confidence beneath it.” Perhaps even more surprising is the love shown by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the once and possibly future presidential hopeful whose oil-rich state bars employees in Tesla’s two showrooms from even telling potential customers how much the Model S costs. “I think it’s time for Texans to have an open conversation about this,” says Perry, "the pros and the cons. I’m gonna think the pros of allowing this to happen outweigh the cons.” The sudden GOP embrace of an electric car company once reviled as a symbol of Northern California enivro-weenies might seem ironic says Wohlsen, but the real irony is that conservative politicians ever opposed Tesla at all. "The widespread franchise rules giving car dealers virtual monopolies in their territories epitomize the government-controlled marketplace Republicans purportedly despise," writes Wohlsen adding that possible presidential contenders realize there may be political capital to be gained in supporting Tesla. But the real winner is Tesla. If the company can manage to associate its brand with all the positive qualities Rubio and Perry hope rub off on them, few politicians will want to take the risk to stand against them. Mitt Romney called Tesla Motors a “loser” company during his 2012 run for president. In 2016 running against Tesla might seem about as smart as running against Apple.

Submission + - North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: BBC reports, "Men in North Korea are now required to get the same haircut as their leader Kim Jong-un ... The state-sanctioned guidelines were introduced in the capital Pyongyang about two weeks ago ...They are now being rolled out across the country — although some people have expressed reservations ... "Our leader's haircut is very particular, if you will," one source tells Radio Free Asia. ... Meanwhile, a North Korean now living in China says the look is actually unpopular at home because people think it resembles Chinese smugglers. ... It seems that haircuts have been state-approved in North Korea for some time — until now people were only allowed to choose from 18 styles for women and 10 for men. Earlier, North Korea's state TV launched a campaign against long hair, called "Let us trim our hair in accordance with the Socialist lifestyle"."
Technology

Submission + - Iron Man-like Exoskeleton Nears Production (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by fangmcgee
fangmcgee writes: By now, with films like Iron Man, its sequel, and Avatar, Hollywood has made us thoroughly familiar with the idea of the robotic exoskeleton. Less well known, however, is that researchers are actually building robotic exoskeletons like the ones envisioned by Hollywood and the comic book visionaries from whom Hollywood pilfers its most lucrative ideas. Among the developers of real-life Iron Man suits (of which there are many, the world over) is a group called Raytheon Sarcos. And as IEEE Spectrum reports in this month's issue, its impressive second-generation exoskeleton robotics suit, dubbed the XOS 2, is nearing production.
Australia

Submission + - Australian research network plans for 100Gbps (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "The Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet) has announced a wide range of initiatives around network upgrades, collaboration, and mobility as part of a new five-year plan. The plan includes delivering a 100Gbps backbone to its education and research customers, to ensure sufficient "headroom" for major projects such as the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, which Slashdot has previously discussed."

Submission + - IBM Plays SimCity with Portland Oregon

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Greg Lindsay reports that Portland Oregon will be the first city to use IBM's new app called Systems Dynamics for Smarter Cities containing 3,000 equations which collectively seek to model cities’ emergent behavior and help them figure out how policy can affect the lives of their citizens. The program seeks to quantify the cause-and-effect relationships between seemingly uncorrelated urban phenomena. "What’s the connection, for example, between ...obesity rates and carbon emissions?" writes Lindsay. "To find out, simply round up experts to hash out the linkages, translate them into algorithms, and upload enough historical data to populate the model. Then turn the knobs to see what happens when you nudge the city in one direction." One of the drivers of the “Portland Plan” is the city’s commitment to a 40 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2030, which necessitates less driving and more walking and biking. Running the model planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find would find walking and biking a more attractive option. But as the field of urban systems gathers steam, it’s important to remember that IBM and its fellow technology companies aren’t the first to offer a quantitative toolkit to cities. In the 1970's RAND built models they thought could predict fire patterns in New York, and then used them to justify closing fire stations in NYC's poorest sections in the name of efficiency, a decision that would ultimately displace 600,000 people as their neighborhoods burned."
Emulation (Games)

Submission + - JavaScript Gameboy emulator, detailed in 8 parts (imrannazar.com)

Submitted by Two9A
Two9A writes: JavaScript has shed its image of being a limited language, tied to DOM manipulation in a browser; in recent years, new engines and frameworks have given JS a reputation as a language capable of bigger things. Mix this in with the new elements of HTML 5, and you have the capacity to emulate a game console or other system, with full graphical output. This series of articles looks in detail at how an emulator is written in JavaScript, using the example of the Gameboy handheld: starting at the CPU, and (as of part 8) running a copy of Tetris.
Security

Major Security Holes Found In Mobile Bank Apps 107

Posted by Soulskill from the and-you-can-take-that-to-the-uh-nevermind dept.
NeverVotedBush writes with this excerpt from CNet: "A security firm disclosed holes today in mobile apps from Bank of America, USAA, Chase, Wells Fargo and TD Ameritrade, prompting a scramble by most of the companies to update the apps. ... Specifically, viaForensics concluded that: the USAA's Android app stored copies of Web pages a user visited on the phone; TD Ameritrade's iPhone and Android apps were storing the user name in plain text on the phone; Wells Fargo's Android app stored user name, password, and account data in plain text on the phone; Bank of America's Android app saves a security question (used if a user was accessing the site from an unrecognized device) in plain text on the phone; and Chase's iPhone app stores the username on a phone if the user chose that option, according to the report. Meanwhile, the iPhone apps from USAA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Vanguard and PayPal's Android app all passed the security tests and were found to be handling data securely."

Submission + - Europe simulates total cyber war (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Tutter
Tutter writes: The first-ever cross-European simulation of an all out cyber attack was planned to test how well nations cope as the attacks slow connections.

The simulation steadily reduced access to critical services to gauge how nations react. The exercise also tested how nations work together to avoid a complete shut-down of international links. Neelie Kroes, European commissioner for the digital agenda, said the exercise was designed to test preparedness and was an "important first step towards working together to combat potential online threats to essential infrastructure". The exercise is intended to help expose short-comings in existing procedures for combating attacks. As the attacks escalated, cyber security centres had to find ever more ways to route traffic through to key services and sites. The exercise also tested if communication channels, set up to help spread the word about attacks, were robust in the face of a developing threat and if the information shared over them was relevant.
NASA

NASA's Stunning Close-Up Photos of Comet Hartley 2 62

Posted by Soulskill from the for-sufficiently-distant-values-of-close dept.
Several readers have sent word that NASA's EPOXI spacecraft performed a close approach to comet Hartley 2 yesterday, taking pictures within roughly 700km of the nucleus. Bad Astronomer Phil Plait has a collection of some fantastic photographs, and you can check out a ton of other images on the mission website. The Planetary Society blog put together a neat animation of the flyby. NASA's mission fact sheet (PDF) explains EPOXI's background — it's the supplemental mission of the Deep Impact craft that smashed a small probe into a different comet back in 2005 — and why Hartley 2 was chosen for this flyby (they couldn't find their original target).

Submission + - Downwind faster than the wind: Record set (makezine.com)

Submitted by Shawnconna
Shawnconna writes: Can a wind cart travel faster than the wind? A group of makers say Yes!, and Make: Online has published the first in a three-part series on the Blackbird wind cart that just set a record. This is a follow-up on a story in MAKE Volume 11 where Charles Platt built a cart based on a viral video where a guy claimed he'd built a wind-powered vehicle that could travel downwind faster than the windspeed. Charles built one and said it didn't work. Heated debates broke out in forums, on BB, and elsewhere on the Net. In the ensuing time, a number of people have built carts and claimed success, most principally, Rick Cavallaro. He got funding, from Google and JOBY, to build and test a human-piloted cart. They claim success, with multiple sensor systems on board, impartial judges and experts in attendance. The controversy continues. And the 3-part story starts today on Makezine.com.

Submission + - Americans Less Healthy but Live Longer than Brits

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Older Americans are less healthy than their English counterparts, but they live as long or even longer than their English peers, according to a new study by researchers from the RAND Corporation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. Researchers found that while Americans aged 55 to 64 have higher rates of chronic diseases than their peers in England, they died at about the same rate. And Americans age 65 and older — while still sicker than their English peers — had a lower death rate than similar people in England, according to findings published in the journal Demography.

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