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Submission + - DHL Goes Live With "Parcelcopter" Drone Delivery Service

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: In December, Amazon announced that it intended to deliver packages to customers using drones. But its initiative was widely ridiculed for being an over-hyped announcement with little to show for it. This summer, Google demonstrated its own drone-based delivery service, using a fixed-wing aircraft to deliver little packages to farmers in the Australian outback. But now, German delivery firm DHL has beaten the tech firms to the post, announcing a regular drone delivery service for the first time, nine months after it launched its "parcelcopter" research project in December 2013. The service will use an quadcopter to deliver small parcels to the German island of Juist, a sandbar island 12km into the North Sea from the German coast, inhabited by 2,000 people. Deliveries will include medication and other urgently needed goods. Flying under 50 meters to avoid entering regulated air traffic corridors, the drone takes a fully automated route, carrying a special air-transport container that is extremely lightweight as well as weatherproof.

Submission + - NSA quantum compute effort disclosed 2

Submitted by sumoinsanity
sumoinsanity writes: Schrödinger's cat is "probably" still in the bag as disclosed by the Washington Post. Perhaps it is both disturbing and reassuring as discussed here. The reassuring part is that PKI is still OK when done properly as the NSA desires to break it with Quantum Crypto. The disturbing bit is that it is perhaps just a matter of time before PKI succumbs and our private parts are out there for all to see :-|
Education

Submission + - German science minister stripped of her PhD (nature.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a move likely to have major political implications, the University of Düsseldorf has revoked the doctoral degree of Germany’s science and education minister, Annette Schavan. The commitee investigating allegations of plagiarism came to the conclusion that she "systematically and deliberately claimed as her own intellectual achievements which she had in fact not produced herself". Schavan wants to appeal the decision in court and has not resigned from her post so far.
Education

Submission + - Pressure Rises on German Science Minister in Plagiarism Scandal (thelocal.de)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Germany's minister for science and education, who is currently under investigation by her alma mater for plagiarising parts of her PhD thesis, is facing new accusations: a total of 92 alleged incidents of plagiarism (German) have been documented by a blogger, who calls "this number of violations inexcusable".
DRM

Submission + - Amazon Blocks Arch Linux Handbook from Kindle Store (thepowerbase.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We've all heard the horror stories of Amazon swindling the user out of their content on the Kindle, but this time they've managed to do it preemptively: by blocking the GFDL licensed Arch Linux Handbook from the Kindle Store.
Education

Submission + - German Science Minister Faces Plagiarism Scandal

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Germany's minister for science and education, Annette Schavan, faces allegations that substantial parts of her PhD thesis have been copied (German, Google translation) without proper attribution. According to the Wordpress blog that brought up the accusations, 56 out of 325 pages of her thesis contain instances of plagiarism. Schavan is the same minister who called an earlier instance of plagiarism by the former German defense minister to be "embarassing".
Supercomputing

Submission + - '07 Physics Nobel Prize in Giant Magnetoresistance (nobelprize.org)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The 2007 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg for simultaneously, independently discovering giant magnetoresistance, the phenomenon which uses alternating layers of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials in conjunction with a magnetic field to change the resistance of the material. This property has allowed the explosion of disk space growth, and is cited as being one of the first nanotechnology breakthroughs. A brief summary of giant magnetoresistance can be found here
Operating Systems

Submission + - Kernel devs say VMware violates Linux copyrights (venturecake.com)

Submitted by Nailer
Nailer writes: Bloomberg believe VMware's IPO today may the largest technology offering since Google. But doubts have been cast over the company's supposedly proprietary ESX product, as top 10 Linux contributor Christopher Hellwig claims the software violates Linux kernel copyrights.

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