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Earth

Submission + - The Most Detailed 121-megapixel Image Of Earth Captured By Russian Satellite (gizmocrazed.com) 1

Submitted by Diggester
Diggester writes: The satellite, known as Elektro-L No.1, took this image from its stationary point over 35,000 kilometers above the Indian Ocean. This is the most detailed image of the Earth yet available to human beings, just because it captures the Earth in a single shot with 121-megapixels unlike NASA satellites, which usually use a collection of pictures from multiple flybys stitched together. The detail in the pic is just amazing, with everything visible so clearly.

Submission + - The FIBIAC - a 3D printed electromechanical computer (chrisfenton.com)

Submitted by Brietech
Brietech writes: "Behold the FIBIAC! Its loud! It computes! It uses actual punch cards!" The FIBIAC is a simple, stepper-motor based, (mostly) 3D-printed electromechanical computer. The program is stored on a loop of paper punch-cards, and the machine uses three, 3-digit electromechanical counters for storage (which could be expanded to support more complicated programs) Watch it in action computing the Fibonacci sequence, or jump on Thingiverse and build your own!
Bitcoin

Submission + - Bitcoinica breach nets hackers $87,000 in Bitcoin (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by dynamo52
dynamo52 writes:

More than $87,000 worth of the virtual currency known as Bitcoin was stolen after online bandits penetrated servers belonging to Bitcoinica, prompting its operators to temporarily shutter the trading platform to contain the damage.

Friday's theft came after hackers accessed Bitcoinica's production servers and depleted its online wallet of 18,547 BTC, as individual Bitcoin units are called, company officials said in a blog post published on Friday. It said the heist affected only a small fraction of Bitcoinica's overall bitcoin deposits and that all withdrawal requests will be honored once the platform reopens.
Games

Submission + - Will Kickstarter Launch A Gaming Renaissance? (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "Most gamers probably know that legendary game designer Tim Schafer turned to Kickstarter to help raise money a new adventure game; aiming for $400,000, he managed to raise more than $3 million. But you might not know that a host of other game projects are doing well on the crowdfunding site, with creators ranging from industry famous to unknown. By bypassing corporate funding and appealing directly to their audience, these developers are sparking a renaissance in quirky, personal games that probably wouldn't be backed by a big label looking for a sure-fire hit."
Space

Submission + - US 'space warplane' spying on Chinese spacelab (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: The US Air Force's second mysterious mini-space shuttle, the X-37B, could be spying on China's space laboratory and the first piece of its space station, Tiangong-1. Amateur space trackers told the British Interplanetary Society publication Spaceflight that the black-funded spaceplane seemed to be orbiting the Earth in tandem with Tiangong_1, or the Heavenly Palace, leading the magazine to speculate that its unknown mission is to spy on it.

First off, the Chinese spacelab wasn't launched until September 2011, some time after the second X-37B hit Earth's orbit. Secondly, you'd have to wonder why it's worth spying on the Tiangong-1. The lab is unmanned for the moment, so all there'd be to study is the technology of the craft and what experiments it's doing. Still, the US is hugely suspicious of China's space endeavours, so it's more than possible that they'd want to get a look at Tiangong-1 just in case it's doing anything unexpected.
AI

Submission + - China catches up with Google's driverless car (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: While Google makes headlines with its driverless car and even manages to lobby Nevada to legalize driverless cars on the public road — China quietly pushes ahead on its own. A driverless car navigated 286km of expressway all on its own. Using nothing but a pair of video cameras and laser rangefinders, i.e. no GPS, it managed to arrive safely even through fog. The computer vision based approach means that at the moment it can only drive during daylight hours. Google might need to speed up...
Linux

Submission + - A Linux Touchscreen computer for Seniors (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by quarterbuck
quarterbuck writes: Journal has a review of the Telikin, an all-in-one desktop, with a touch screen, that starts at $699 and comes from a small Philadelphia-area start-up called Venture 3 Systems.
It is much simplified (no powerpoint editing for eg.) and the hardware is thought through (two microphones), but the review is claiming that the software is still buggy.
The Internet

Submission + - Better Copyright Through Fair Use And Ponies (variety.com)

Submitted by Balinares
Balinares writes: With even harmless parody sites like Peanutweeter now getting shut down by twitchy lawyers in the name of brand dilution concerns, the situation with fair use has become bleak. Yet some companies are learning at last. Variery reports that when parodies of their latest production started popping up online, Hasbro not only allowed it to happen, but started contributing some of their own. Now their My Little Pony reboot has gained a huge following and reached cult status. Fair use does make everything better. That, or it's the ponies.
Security

Submission + - Aaron Barr Bows Out of DEFCON After Legal Threat (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Former HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr says he will withdraw from a planned appearance at the DEFCON conference in the face of threatened legal action over his plans to take part in a panel discussion there.

Barr notified DEFCON organizers on Wednesday that he was withdrawing from the Aug. 6 panel discussion after attorneys representing HBGary Federal threatened to file an injunction against him if he did not withdraw from the panel immediately. The incident is just the latest in a series of conflicts between Barr and HBGary Federal following attacks by the anarchic hacking group Anonymous on February 5.
Security

Submission + - LulzSec spokesman Topiary arrested in the UK (sophos.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: British police have arrested a 19-year-old man believed to be "Topiary", the official spokesperson of the LulzSec hactivist group.

The man was arrested at his home in the Shetland Islands earlier today (July 27), and is being transported to a central London police station.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Sony Won't Invest As Heavily in PlayStation 4 (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: Sony CFO Masaru Kato told investors this week that the company won't be looking to put the same kind of massive R&D into PS4 as they did with PS3. PS3's costs were astronomical because of Blu-ray and the Cell chip, but Sony's bottom line can't take another similar hit. Analysts are speculating that this will leave the door open for competitors like Microsoft. "PS4's hardware could be less impressive than the PS3 at its launch. I think Microsoft will really be able to put the screws to Sony in the next console war," Panoptic analyst Asif Khan commented to IndustryGamers.
Nintendo

Submission + - Nintendo pulls Dead or Alive over porn fears in EU (thinq.co.uk) 1

Submitted by cpu6502
cpu6502 writes: The new Nintendo 3DS game "Dead or Alive: Dimensions" is being pulled from EU member states Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The distributor said an in-game photography mode allows players to look-up the dresses of 17-year-old Ayane, Koroke, and Kasumi — which could be considered 'child porn' by local police.
Games

Submission + - Bringing old arcade machines into the Internet age (hackaday.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: To celebrate the opening of their hackerspace, Sprite_tm of SpritesMods hacked an old 1943 arcade machine to record its high scores, as well as post them on Twitter, via a newly added TCP/IP stack. The bus-tapping module he added to the machine lets him read the full contents of the Z80 logic board's memory, allowing him to store high scores for posterity as well as add an Ethernet interface. The device should work on any Z80-based machine, which makes it easy to add these same capabilities to any old arcade cabinet.

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