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Comment Help! (Score 2) 23

by vinaychittora (#50455987) Attached to: Completely Paralyzed Man Walks In Robotic Exoskeleton
I can't express how happy I am to hear this news. It's been 26 years since I felt my legs down there. I am from India, and just another engineer in the crowd. I don't think I can afford that right now but can anyone give me directions, should I contact these people to make me the part of experiments or something? It would be great if slashdot people help me to find out a path to reach there. Thanks to the researchers who made it possible and showing a silver-lining to the people suffering from such conditions.

Submission + - Hacking a 'Smart' Sniper Rifle (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It was inevitable: as soon as we heard about the computer-aimed rifles, we knew somebody would find a way to compromise their security. At the upcoming Black Hat security conference, researchers Runa Sandvik and Michael Auger will present their techniques for doing just that. "Their tricks can change variables in the scope’s calculations that make the rifle inexplicably miss its target, permanently disable the scope’s computer, or even prevent the gun from firing." In one demonstration they were able to tweak the rifle's ballistic calculations by making it think a piece of ammunition weighed 72 lbs instead of 0.4 ounces. After changing this value, the gun tries to automatically adjust for the weight, and shoots significantly to the left. Fortunately, they couldn't find a way to make the gun fire without physically pulling the trigger.

Submission + - Mozilla Disables Flash in Firefox by Default

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: As the zero days in Adobe Flash continue to pile up, Mozilla has taken the unusual step of disabling by default all versions of Flash in Firefox.

The move is a temporary one as Adobe prepares to patch two vulnerabilities in Flash that were discovered as a result of the HackingTeam document dump last week. Both vulnerabilities are use-after-free bugs that can be used to gain remote code execution. One of the flaws is in Action Script 3 while the other is in the BitMapData component of Flash.

Exploits for these vulnerabilities were found in the data taken from HackingTeam in the attack disclosed last week. An exploit for one of the Flash vulnerabilities, the one in ActionScript 3, has been integrated into the Angler exploit kit already and there’s a module for it in the Metasploit Framework, as well.

Submission + - As Cloud Growth Booms, Server Farms Get Super-Sized (datacenterfrontier.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: Internet titans are concentrating massive amounts of computing power in regional cloud campuses housing multiple data centers. These huge data hubs, often in rural communities, enable companies to rapidly add server capacity and electric power amid rapid growth of cloud hosting and social sharing. As this growth continues, we'll see more of these cloud campuses, and they’ll be bigger than the ones we see today. Some examples from this month: Google filed plans for a mammoth 800,000 square foot data center near Atlanta, Equinix announced 1 million square feet of new data centers on its campus in Silicon Valley, and Facebook began work on a $1 billion server farm in Texas that will span 750,000 square feet.

Submission + - Hillary Clinton takes aim at 'Uber economy' (marketwatch.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: In a major campaign speech in New York City, the former secretary of state didn’t mention the ride-sharing service by name. But it was pretty clear what sort of companies she was talking about when she got to how some Americans earn money.

“Many Americans are making extra money renting out a spare room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car,” she said at the New School.

But that sort of work comes with its own problems, she said.

“This ‘on demand’ or so-called ‘gig economy’ ... is raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future,” Clinton added.

Submission + - Rich and American? Australia wants you

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Following the success of a millionaire visa program to attract wealthy Chinese, Australia has launched an invite-only visa program that promises citizenship to rich American entrepreneurs. To meet the requirements of the Premium Investment Visa plan Americans must first invest around 15 million Australian dollars. Reuters reports: "Investment advisors who have been briefed on the plan by government officials expressed doubts about the wisdom of targeting Americans, with several telling Reuters the more obvious place to start was Australia's Asian neighbors. After all, why would a successful U.S. entrepreneur want to invest a large chunk of cash in Australia — a country very similar to the United States, just further away from everything — in exchange for a passport that carries few additional benefits to their own? 'The U.S. has some problems that Australia doesn't have. It's got a lot more racial crimes, it's got a lot more gun-related crimes, but I don't think that is going to drive a whole bunch of ultra-rich Americans out of their country,' said Bill Fuggle, a partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie who advises wealthy Chinese migrating to Australia."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Why do mobile versions of websites suck? 4

Submitted by Kelbear
Kelbear writes: As user traffic over mobile devices grows in leaps and bounds, it's surprising to me as a layman that so many companies still have crippled and broken mobile pages in late 2013. There must be justifiable reasons for this, so: Fellow Slashdotters, can you please share the obstacles you've seen in your own companies that have delayed or defeated efforts to develop competent mobile sites? Are the issues in obtaining or maintaining compatibility driven by platform owners like Apple and Google?
Sci-Fi

Alien Screenwriter Dan O'Bannon, Dead At 63 139

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fare-thee-well-nostromo dept.
Dave Knott writes "The notable science fiction screenwriter and director Dan O'Bannon has died at the age of 63. O'Bannon's career began with a writing credit for John Carpenter's Dark Star and he went on the write many enduring science fiction and horror films such as Blue Thunder, Lifeforce, Screamers and Total Recall. He was also an occasional director, whose credits include The Return Of The Living Dead, the campy horror film that made popular the zombie chant of 'braaiiiinnnsss.' However, he will be best remembered as the writer of Alien, one of the all-time classics of both the science fiction and horror genres. O'Bannon died after a 30 year battle with Crohn's disease and is survived by his wife, Diane, and son, Adam."
Patents

Apple Counter-Sues Nokia Over Patents 137

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fight-fire-with-more-lawyers dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "About two months ago Nokia sued Apple for infringing Nokia patents in its iPhone. The 10 patents in the lawsuit, filed in the US state of Delaware, relate to technologies fundamental for devices using GSM, UMTS and/or local area network (LAN) standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. In the latest development to the case, Apple said Friday that it had filed its own suit against Nokia, countering Nokia's claims of patent infringement with its own."

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