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The Military

Submission + - Robo-gunsight system makes sniper's life easier (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Military and police marksmen could see their rifle sights catch up with the 21st century with a fiber-optic laser-based sensor system that automatically corrects for even tiny barrel disruptions. Factors such as heat generated by previously fired shots, to a simple bump against the ground can affect the trueness a rifle barrel. The new system precisely measures the deflection of the barrel relative to the sight and then electronically makes the necessary corrections. With modern high-caliber rifles boasting ranges of up to two miles, even very small barrel disruptions can cause a shooter to miss by a wide margin.
AI

Submission + - Ball catching robot,80% accuracy in 5 milliseconds (physorg.com)

Submitted by
fysdt
fysdt writes: "DLR, an aerospace agency based in German, has modified its flagship robot, known as the Rollin’ Justin, in order to make it into a lean, mean, catching machine. The Rollin’ Justin's modifications allow the machine to catch balls that are thrown in its direction with an accuracy rate of about 80%. The Rollin’ Justin's robots accuracy rating is better than the average uncoordinated human. It is certainly better than this reporters accuracy rate. It is not as good as say, a Major League Baseball player, but then again most of us cannot say that we are as good as the pros either. Considering they also have near unlimited stamina, at least until the battery runs out, it may be a great partner for the standard game of catch, or for the position behind the batter."
Robotics

Submission + - Kinect and body movements control Parrot ARdrone (suasnews.com)

Submitted by
garymortimer
garymortimer writes: "Nice one for a Friday afternoon, we are not convinced this is the most efficient way to control a multirotor. It points to the future though. Joysticks may become a thing of the past?. This week in the UK a Royal Air Force study showed that non pilots performed as well as trained pilots whilst commanding UAS.

The RAF’s Project Daedalus, to investigate if non-pilots could be trained to fly unmanned aerial systems as well as fully trained pilots has been ‘completed’. According to the RAF, the programme

“has successfully demonstrated that selection and training can generate remote pilots who, despite undergoing a different sort of training, are as highly trained and eq.ually skilled as traditional pilots in that field.”

So is it time for the joystick to disappear in the sUAS world?"
Idle

Submission + - Bicycles as a gateway to government control (9news.com)

Submitted by somaTh
somaTh writes: Dan Maes, a candidate for govenor of Colorodo, proudly displays what might be described as "What happens when people don't have a clue what they're talking about." The article describes his current complaints with the incumbent's policies.
"The bike program in it of itself, if that's all it is, I wouldn't be opposed to it," Maes told 9NEWS. "What I am opposed to is if it's part of a bigger program that the mayor has signed on to as part of a UN program. That I would be opposed to." He goes on to argue that the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control. I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose.

Submission + - Why you shouldn't worry about IPv6 just yet (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by nk497
nk497 writes: While it's definitely time to start thinking about IPv6, it's not time for most to move up to it, argues Steve Cassidy, saying most can turn it off in Windows 7 without causing any trouble. Many network experts argue we're nearing network armageddon, but they've been saying that for years."This all started when Tony Blair was elected. The first time. Yep, thatâ's how long IPv6 has been around, and it’s quite a few weeks ago now." He says smart engineering has avoided many of the problems. "Is there an IPv6 “killer app” yet for smaller networks? No. Is there any reason based on security or ease of management – unless you’re running a 100,000-seat network or a national-level ISP – for you to move up to it? No. Should you start to do a bit of reading about it? That’s about the stage we’re truly at, and the answer to that one is: yes," he says.

Submission + - Windows Flaws Lead to Black Hat ATM Hack (internetnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ever wonder what operating system most ATM's use? In a session at the Black Hat Las Vegas security conference, researcher Barnaby Jones hacked a pair of ATMs with cash literally flying out of them when he was done.

Jones explained that most ATM's run Microsoft Windows CE on ARM processors and they all tend to have remote updating capabilities. Jones wrote a remote exploitation program called Dilinger to remotely exploit the ATM. Then once the ATM is exploited he has another program called Scrooge which is a root kit for the ATM. With those tools, Jones — much to the delight of the massive Black Hat crowd that gathered to see him — he used his tools to exploit a pair of ATMs on stage — Live.


Science

Submission + - Adventures in Very Recent Evolution (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Third Position
Third Position writes: Ten thousand years ago, people in southern China began to cultivate rice and quickly made an all-too-tempting discovery — the cereal could be fermented into alcoholic liquors. Carousing and drunkenness must have started to pose a serious threat to survival because a variant gene that protects against alcohol became almost universal among southern Chinese and spread throughout the rest of China in the wake of rice cultivation.

The variant gene rapidly degrades alcohol to a chemical that is not intoxicating but makes people flush, leaving many people of Asian descent a legacy of turning red in the face when they drink alcohol.

Many have assumed that humans ceased to evolve in the distant past, perhaps when people first learned to protect themselves against cold, famine and other harsh agents of natural selection. But in the last few years, biologists peering into the human genome sequences now available from around the world have found increasing evidence of natural selection at work in the last few thousand years, leading many to assume that human evolution is still in progress.

Submission + - SCOTUS to hear appeal of CA Game Violance Ban (theeca.com)

Submitted by powerlord
powerlord writes: "For nearly two decades, elected officials have tried to regulate which video games you can buy, rent and play. Every single time they’ve passed a law, the federal courts have struck it down as unconstitutional. But this may change this fall.

The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to hear the State of California’s infamous ‘violent video game case,’ Schwarzenegger v. EMA. That means that this year, or early next, the Court is going to decide whether to agree with the lower federal courts or not. Agreeing would mean that they believe that video games are, and should continue to be, First Amendment protected speech; just like books, movies and music. The court disagreeing would mean that they think video games should be treated differently. This could lead to new bills and laws curtailing video game access in states across the country."
Security

Submission + - Redmond Opens Source Code to KGB Successor

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "ZDNet reports that Microsoft has given access to source code for Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server to the Russian Federal Security Service, the main successor agency of the Soviet-era Cheka, NKVD and KGB, with hopes of improving Microsoft sales to the Russian state in an agreement that will allow Russia to study the source code and develop cryptography for the Microsoft products through the Science-Technical Centre 'Atlas', a government body controlled by the Ministry of Communications and Press. "The purpose of the GSP (Government Security Program) is to increase trust with national governments," says Microsoft in a statement. "In the case of the Russian agreement, GSP participation will facilitate the development of the next generation of secured solutions for Russian government agencies based on the latest Microsoft technologies and Russian cryptography." The agreement is an extension to a deal Microsoft struck with the Russian government in 2002 to share source code for Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2000. Not everyone is pleased with the agreement. Cambridge University security expert Richard Clayton says that opening up source code could enable a government to find security holes that the state could use to launch attacks against other nations, adding that there are tens of thousands of bugs in Microsoft products, in part due to the sheer volume of source code and that an attacker only has to find one hole and exploit it successfully to gain access to other systems. "It's completely asymmetrical," says Clayton."
News

Submission + - NTP Sues Big IT Companies (techcrunch.com) 1

Submitted by helix2301
helix2301 writes: NTP who claims to be the founder and holds the patent for sending e-mail over wireless hand held devices is sewing Microsoft, Apple, Google, and other major players in the technology industry. They sewed RIM a few years ago and they settled out of court. The amount they are sewing for is unknown at this time.
Security

Submission + - REMNux: The Malware Analysis Linux OS (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: A security expert has released a stripped-down Ubuntu distribution designed specifically for reverse-engineering malware. The OS, called REMnux, includes a slew of popular malware-analysis, network monitoring and memory forensics tools the comprise a very powerful environment for taking apart malicious code. REMnux is the creation of Lenny Zeltser, an expert on malware reverse engineering who teaches a popular course on the topic at SANS conferences. He said that he put the operating system together after years of having students ask him which tools to use and what works best. He originally used Red Hat Linux but recently decided that Ubuntu was a better fit.

The OS includes a virtual treasue chest of reverse-engineering and malware-analysis tools. REMNux has three separate tools for analyzinf Flash-specific malware, including SWFtools, Flasm and Flare, as well as several applications for analyzing malicious PDFs, including Didier Stevens' analysis tools.REMNux also has a number of tools for de-obfuscating JavaScript, including Rhino debugger, a version of Firefox with NoScript, JavaScript Deobfuscator and Firebug installed, and Windows Script Decoder.

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