20820702
submission
katarn writes:
Nick Risinger traveled the world, using a robotic camera mount and six air cooled cameras each fitted with their own lenses and filters, to capture the entire universe in one image; the largest full true-color sky survey. The project took a year of time and logged 60,000 miles. The final image is made up of 37,000 individual photos, has a resolution of 5000 megapixels, and took months to piece together. Risinger states: "Travel was necessary as capturing the full sphere of the night sky brought with it certain limitations. What might be seen in the northern hemisphere isn't always visible from the south and, likewise with the seasons, what may be overhead in the summer is below the horizon in the winter. Complicated by weather and moon cycles, this made for some narrow windows of opportunity which we chased through the remote areas of Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, California and Oregon."
14238820
submission
katarn writes:
Apparently domestic and international pressure, security vulnerabilities, and a 2.2Bn lawsuit over alleged stolen code have taken their toll on China's Green Dam software censorship program. Green Dam is a separate program from the "Great Firewall of China", which remains firmly in place. According to Green Dam program partners, funding for the project has not been renewed. The project development team has been shut down and the installation and aftercare team is facing closure. Unsurprisingly there has been no official comment from official Chinese authorities.
14091146
submission
katarn writes:
A study released this year found that 38 percent of the credit card hacking cases last year involved the hotel industry. At hotels with inadequate data security, the greatest amount of credit card information can be obtained using the most simplified methods. It doesn’t require brilliance on the part of the hacker. Most of the chronic security breaches in the hotel industry are the result of a failure to equip, or to properly store or transmit this kind of data, and that starts with the point-of-sale credit card swiping systems.
5395413
submission
katarn writes:
General Fusion is a startup proposing they can create commercially viable fusion using acoustic shock waves, triggered by 220 precisely controlled pneumatic pistons. Their approach is based on a US Naval research concept called "Linus" and old research done by General Atomics. They feel we now have the high speed digital processing capable of pulling off the feat, where decades ago the technology was not available. I think we can hold off on the "vaporware" and "scam" tags for a little bit on this one; everyone is aware of the horrible track record for turning fusion concepts into reality, and they don't claim to be the first with the idea or that there are not substantial challenges in the way. If nothing else it is a fascinating concept.
