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Submission + - The Randomly Random File System (github.com)

Submitted by gagol
gagol writes: We all know /dev/random, it offers the capability to generate a sequence one byte/block at a time. We cannot usually playback the past bytes or predict the bytes far ahead. This is excellent for cryptographic applications where secrecy is essential.

The Randomly Random File System (RRFS) expose 1 YottaByte (1 Tera-Terabyte) of randomly adressable random data. It's data is accessed like any files and include seeking. Supporting 80 bit "adresses" using "63 bit" file offsets posed some challenges, test the limits of my computer and let me see what macos look like when it crashes.

RRFS is available under a BSD Licence. These are my notes telling the story of how this file system works, step by step, from mount to dismount.

This is an amateur project, plenty of gritty details on the project's page https://github.com/sysaulab/Ra...

Submission + - Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles (valuewalk.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nikola Motor Company just unveiled a huge class 8 truck which will run on hydrogen fuel cells. Nikola claimed that the truck’s operational range will be as much as 1,200 miles (1,900 km), and it will be released in 2020. Nikola designed the Nikola One for long-haul transport across a large landmass. The truck will deliver over 1,000 horsepower and 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. Provided these claims are true, the vehicle will provide nearly double the power of the current-gen diesel-powered semis/articulated lorries, notes Ars Technica. The leasing cost of the trucks will include the fuel price, servicing costs and warranty, but exactly how the lease will work is not known now, notes Ars Technica. The company says it has already accepted nearly $3 billion in future orders. A fully-electric drivetrain which gets power from high-density lithium batteries runs the vehicle, and a hydrogen fuel cell charges the batteries on the go. Its reach is presently limited, as hydrogen fueling stations currently exist in only small numbers. This made Nikola decide to construct a network of 364 hydrogen fueling stations across the U.S. and Canada, just like Tesla with its network of Superchargers. Milton claims it will come with a smart dashboard which has the capability of picking the most cost-efficient route for drivers. Also one or two full-size beds will be included inside the vehicle’s enormous cab. It will have other luxuries and necessities as well, such as Wi-Fi, a refrigerator, 4G LTE connectivity, freezer, a 40-inch curved 4K TV with Apple TV and a microwave.

Submission + - Stephen Hawking: Automation and AI Is Going To Decimate Middle Class Jobs (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a column in The Guardian, the world-famous physicist wrote that "the automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining." He adds his voice to a growing chorus of experts concerned about the effects that technology will have on workforce in the coming years and decades. The fear is that while artificial intelligence will bring radical increases in efficiency in industry, for ordinary people this will translate into unemployment and uncertainty, as their human jobs are replaced by machines. Automation will, "in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world," Hawking wrote. "The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive." He frames this economic anxiety as a reason for the rise in right-wing, populist politics in the West: "We are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent." Combined with other issues — overpopulation, climate change, disease — we are, Hawking warns ominously, at "the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity." Humanity must come together if we are to overcome these challenges, he says.

Submission + - Accused British "Flash Crash" trader to be extradited to the US. (zerohedge.com)

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: Navinder Sarao has lost his appeal and is set to be extradited to the USA, where he faces charges with a possible maximum sentence of 380 years. He is accused of causing the "flash crash" in 2010, when the Dow Jones index dropped by 1000 points. He ran his trading from his bedroom in his parents' house and it is claimed that he made more than £30M (approximately $40M) in 5 years. His parents had no idea what he was doing, nor the scale of his income. He is accused of placing trades that he never intended to fill, so, to this naive person, it's hard to distinguish what he did from that of the large high-speed trading firms.

Submission + - Carl Sagan on team to nuke the moon, Dr. Evil reported jealous (cnn.com)

Submitted by novakom
novakom writes: Apparently during the cold war, one fall back position the US was looking at to ensure mutual ensured destruction was to put nukes on the moon. This would ensure that the US could retaliate against even an effective first strike by the Russians. The first step, of course, would be to detonate a nuke on the moon. And yes, Carl Sagan was on the team (and apparently leaked the info!)
Businesses

Submission + - Inside An Amazon Warehouse (ibtimes.com) 1

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "In each one of Amazon.com's 80 fulfillment centers around the globe, Amazon relies on barcodes and human hands rather than robots or automation to find and ship the proper items in a quick and efficient manner. Without robots, Amazon utilizes a system known as "chaotic storage," where products are essentially shelved at random but are tagged with barcodes to be scanned at every step of the ordering, selection and shipping process. The real advantage to chaotic storage is that it's significantly more flexible than conventional storage systems. If there are big changes in a product range, the company doesn't need to plan for more space, because the products or their sales volumes don't need to be known or planned in advance if they're simply being stored at random. Free space is also better utilized in a chaotic storage system, and it's also a major time saver to not organize products as they come in. This system is the true key to Amazon.com's success in online retail."

Submission + - Staples To Offer 3D Printing Services (fabbaloo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mcor and Staples announced today a deal in which Mcor will supply their paper-based 3D printers to Staples Copy Centers worldwide. Staples customers will be able to upload their 3D model and pick up the printed object at their local copy center. The rollout starts in The Netherlands and Belgium in 1Q 2013 and then opens up in other countries.
Medicine

Submission + - A Blood Test That Screens for Cancer (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: People usually find out that they have cancer after developing symptoms or through a screening test such as a mammogram—signs that may appear only after the cancer has grown or spread so much that it can't be cured. But what if you could find out from a simple, highly accurate blood test that you had an incipient tumor? By sequencing the abnormal DNA that a tumor releases into a person's bloodstream, researchers are now one step closer to a universal cancer test. Although the technique is now only sensitive enough to detect advanced cancers, that may be a matter of money: As sequencing costs decrease, the developers of the method say, the test could eventually pick up early tumors as well.
Google

Submission + - Google threatens French media ban (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by another random user
another random user writes: Google has threatened to exclude French media sites from search results if France goes ahead with plans to make search engines to pay for content.

In a letter sent to several ministerial offices, Google said such a law "would threaten its very existence".

French newspaper publishers have been pushing for the law, saying it is unfair that Google receives advertising revenue from searches for news. French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti also favours the idea. She told a parliamentary commission it was "a tool that it seems important to me to develop".

Submission + - Day traders convicted for tricking trading machine (ft.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Financial Times reports that day traders Svend Egil Larsen and Peder Veiby have been fined and handed suspended prison sentences for working out how a computerized trading system would respond to certain trades and profiting from "illegal trades." While sympathy for the two day traders, and admiration for their triumph of of man versus machine, is widespread, "Christian Stenberg, the Norwegian police attorney responsible for the case, said any admiration for the men was misplaced. 'This is a new kind of manipulation but it is still at the expense of other investors in the market,' he said."
Patents

Submission + - Webvention Demanding $80k for Rollover Images (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "Webvention is demanding that websites with rollover images pay $80,000 or face a patent lawsuit based on US patent 5,251,294, which it bought from Intellectual Ventures. Webvention claims to already have licensing deals with Apple, Google, Nokia, Sears, Sony and Orbitz. Right now, they're suing Abercrombie and Fitch, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dell, Gamestop, E*Trade, Neiman Marcus, Visa and ten others in a court in east Texas."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Wikileaks donations account blacklisted (guardian.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Scrameustache
Scrameustache writes: The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government.

Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist.

The apparent blacklisting came a few days after the Pentagon publicly expressed its anger at WikiLeaks and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange, for obtaining thousands of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan.

Submission + - Chertoff advocates cyber Cold War (zdnet.co.uk)

Submitted by Jack Spine
Jack Spine writes: The US and allied countries should formulate a doctrine to apply the principles of nuclear deterrence to cyber attacks and cyber espionage, according to former US Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. No matter that it's very difficult to attribute the source of cyber attacks — just take punitive action against the platform being used to attack, says Chertoff.
Government

Submission + - FCC approves changes to cable box rules (thehill.com)

Submitted by GovTechGuy
GovTechGuy writes: The FCC issued an order Thursday that should make it much easier and cheaper for consumers to purchase and install third-party cable boxes made by manufacturers such as TiVo. The rules are aimed at spurring competition in the cable box market; currently consumers overwhelmingly choose to rent a box from their cable provider rather than buy their own. Lawmakers have complained the current cable box technology is outdated and doesn't allow consumers to leverage new sources of video content such as the Web or streaming services from providers such as Netflix. The new rules should result in a smarter, more advanced cable box in the near future.
Software

Submission + - Toddler PC software (and apppriate input device?) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I have an 18-month-old who loves bright screens (TV and computer), loves loud noises, and loves to mash buttons. He targets my laptop with the button-mashing, and I sort of hate having to tell him "no" when he wants to explore a computer. I was wondering if anyone knows of some fun (and maybe educational) age-specific PC software that also comes with an age-appropriate input device. I've seen those big-button devices in retail stores that seem to just hook up to the TV, and I've also seen some PC software that requires keyboard/mouse input, which does not seem like the right input device for a toddler.

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