tripleevenfall writes: Pebble is laying off 25% of its employees -- that's 40 pink slips -- taking it down to just 80 people. It seems indicative of the smartwatch market's terrible state. Previously the darling of the crowdfunding fraternity -- it raised over $30 million on Kickstarter -- Pebble is finding it hard to keep the plates spinning in 2016.
The layoffs were confirmed by Pebble's CEO Eric Migicovsky, who implied that venture capitalists are now less keen on funding the smartwatch category.

aarondubrow writes: Researchers working on the Severe Hail Analysis, Representation and Prediction (SHARP) project at the University of Oklahoma used the Stampede supercomputer to gain a better understanding of the conditions that cause severe hail to form, and to produce hail forecasts with far greater accuracy than those currently used operationally. The model the team used is six times more resolved that the National Weather Service's highest-resolution forecasts and applies machine learning algorithms to improve its predictions. The researchers will publish their results in an upcoming issue of the American Meteorological Society journal Weather and Forecasting.

coondoggie quotes a report from NetworkWorld: NASA this week said it was considering a new Centennial Challenge: Build an airship capable of long-duration flight for scientific missions. The agency issued a Request For information to see if there was enough industry interest in the challenge and to further develop rules for the competition.
The challenge would award prizes for successful demonstration of a stratospheric airship that would be required to accomplish the following: Reach a minimum altitude of 20 km, maintain the altitude for 20 hours (200 hours for Tier 2 competition), remain within a 20 km diameter station area (and navigate between two designated points for Tier 2), successfully return the 20 kg payload (200 kg for Tier 2 competition) and payload data, and show airship scalability for longer duration flights with larger payloads through a scalability review. The proposed structure for this competition is [centered around two main awards]. Award 1: A proposed $1.0 million will be split between teams successfully completing Tier 1 within 3 years of the challenge initiation. Award 2: A proposed $1.5 million will be awarded to the first successful demonstration of Tier 2 within four years of challenge initiation.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted seven Iranians with intelligence links over a series of crippling cyberattacks against 46 U.S. financial institutions between 2011 and 2013. The indictment, which was unsealed Thursday, also accuses one of the Iranians of remotely accessing the control system of a small dam in Rye, N.Y, during the same period. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the indictment is meant to send a message: "That we will not allow any individual, group, or nation to sabotage American financial institutions or undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market." According to the indictment, the seven men worked for two Iran-based computer security companies that have done work for the Iranian government, including the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The men allegedly carried out large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which overwhelm a server with communications in order to disable it.

Reader itwbennett writes: A Trojan program, dubbed USB Thief by researchers at security firm ESET, infects USB drives that contain portable installations of popular applications such as Firefox, NotePad++, or TrueCrypt, and it also seems to be designed to steal information from so-called air-gapped computers. "In the case we analyzed, it was configured to steal all data files such as images or documents, the whole windows registry tree (HKCU), file lists from all of the drives, and information gathered using an imported open-source application called 'WinAudit'," the ESET researchers said. The stolen data was saved back to the USB drive and was encrypted using elliptic curve cryptography. Once the USB drive was removed, there was no evidence left on the computer, the ESET researchers added.

An anonymous reader quotes an article on AndroidAuthority: Optics pundits have been crowing about AMOLED destroying LCD for a while now: they are thinner, brighter, more energy efficient and arguably offer better colors, higher contrast, and deeper saturation than LCD. The biggest barrier stopping AMOLED from taking over as the smartphone display technology of choice has been price. Until now that is. As predicted two years ago, it has only taken 24 months for AMOLED production costs to fall below that of LCD. Production costs in the first quarter for a 5-inch Full HD smartphone display are $14.30 for an AMOLED panel and $14.60 for an LCD display. In the fourth quarter of 2015, these figures were $17.10 and $15.70, respectively. [...] With AMOLED production costs dropping below LCD for the first time, AMOLED panels will soon become the default display technology choice for manufacturers on their mid-range and entry-level devices as well.

An anonymous reader writes: For the first time ever, AMD has provided open-source support for next-generation discrete GPUs ahead of the product's launch. AMD developers published initial open-source Linux driver support for Polaris GPUs with the addition adding over sixty-seven thousand lines of code to the Linux kernel. AMD Polaris graphics cards are expected this summer while AMD released the open-source driver support in advance for preparing their new Linux hybrid driver that relies upon the open-source AMDGPU kernel driver.

An anonymous reader writes: RSA security researcher Rotem Kerner has identified a common vulnerability in the firmware of 70 different CCTV DVR vendors, which allows crooks to execute code and gain root privileges on the affected devices. The problem was actually in the firmware of just one DVR sold by Chinese firm TVT. The practice of "white-labeling" products helped propagate this issue to other "manufacturers" who did nothing more than to buy a non-branded DVR, tweaked its firmware, slapped their logo on top, and sold it a their own, vulnerability included.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is planning to compete with Nuance and other voice recognition companies head on by opening up its speech recognition API to third-party developers. To attract developers, the app will be free at launch with pricing to be introduced at a later date. The company formally announced the service today during its NEXT cloud user conference, where it also unveiled a raft of other machine learning developments and updates, most significantly a new machine learning platform. The Google Cloud Speech API, which will cover over 80 languages and will work with any application in real-time streaming or batch mode, will offer full set of APIs for applications to "see, hear and translate," Google says. It is based on the same neural network tech that powers Google's voice search in the Google app and voice typing in Google's Keyboard. Google's move will have a large impact on the industry as a whole -- and particularly on Nuance, the company long thought of as offering the best voice recognition capabilities in the business, and most certainly the biggest offering such services.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from WashingtonPost: District regulators approved a $6.8 billion merger between Pepco Holdings and Exelon on Wednesday, creating the largest publicly-held utility in the country. The merger means that Pepco will now be absorbed by a company with the largest number of nuclear reactors in the country and widespread operations throughout the mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and New England. In voting 2 to 1 to approve the deal, the D.C. Public Service Commission said it "was in the public interest," noting that it would deposit $72.8 million in a "customer investment fund," set aside $11.25 million for energy efficiency and conservation programs targeted toward low-income residents, and carve out $21.55 million for pilot projects such as modernizing the electric distribution grid. "These benefits, among others, would not be available to District ratepayers if the merger is not approved," the commission said in a statement.

An anonymous reader writes from an article on PCWorld: Big-name pornography website Pornhub has partnered with BadoinkVR, an early mover and shaker in VR porn, to launch a new section dedicated to immersive adult videos, aka VR porn. "Virtual reality is the next phase in the constantly metamorphosing world of adult entertainment, and will provide users with a mesmeric experience unlike anything they've seen before," Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in a press release. "Now, our users are not only able to view our content, but be protagonists in the experience and interact with their favorite porn stars." The videos are roughly five-minute-long trailers designed to hook you on the VR porn experience. If you want the full videos, you'll need to sign up for a subscription with BadoinkVR itself, which will unlock the service's full adult-video selection starting at $20 per month. Pornhub is giving away 10,000 free pairs of branded Google Cardboard VR glasses if you are interested in trying out the experience but lack a VR headset.

MojoKid quotes a report from HotHardware: The OLO 3D Printer was first announced in October at the World Maker Faire in New York, where it earned itself an Editor's Choice award and accolades. The developers behind OLO call it a "smartphone 3D printer" as it requires a smartphone to operate. Designs can either be downloaded from the internet from the device, or copied over from a computer once it's created. When placed on a desk, the OLO looks like an inconspicuous little box, but inside, it can craft items up to 400 cm3 in volume. Its developers call the OLO "portable," and it has the specs to match at 1.7 lbs with a physical size of only 6.8" x 4.5" x 5.8." OLO is a unique printer not only because of its small form factor and low price point ($99), but because of its operation. Once the 3D model is loaded, the bottom section of OLO can be placed on top of your phone, and then the resin of your choice is poured inside that structure. You then place the top half of OLO on top and wait a few hours for it to do its thing. The resin hardens by using the light emitted from the smartphone it sits on top of, generated from the OLO app.

prisoninmate writes: After yet another six months of hard work, the highly anticipated GNOME 3.20 desktop environment for GNU/Linux operating systems has been officially released on March 23, 2016. Release highlights include support for operating system upgrades via GNOME Software, middle-click paste, kinetic scrolling, drag-and-drop support for Wayland, keyboard shortcuts and gestures overlay for most of the core apps, XDG-Apps technology for installing multiple versions of an app, and much more goodies.

tlhIngan writes: Earlier this week, the FBI asked the court for a continuance so it could do some research into a proposed method of cracking the [iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California shooters]. It turns out the FBI has contracted Cellebrite for $15,000 to break into the phone. Cellebrite is an Israeli software provider specializing in mobile phone forensics software. If they succeed, it would mean Apple would no longer need to be involved.

Reader MojoKid writes: Some might say there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to computing, and that's especially true for workstation graphics professionals who need varying levels of performance and memory space. For that reason, NVIDIA is now offering a version of its Quadro M6000 graphics card with 24GB of GDDR5 memory, twice as much memory as much as the original model. According to NVIDIA, customers rendering datasets larger than 12GB can experience up to 5X faster performance compared to the previous Quadro M6000. Like the 12GB version, the new 24GB Quadro M6000 is based on NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture. It has 3,072 CUDA cores, a 384-bit memory bus, four DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, a single DVI-I connectors, and a maximum power consumption rating of 250W. In addition to the doubling the memory buffer, NVIDIA added a few other features, including more GPU clock options, greater software temperature control to keep the GPU temp below the point where throttling occurs, and a new under-power boot message if the card is ever under powered.

An anonymous reader quotes a DailyDot article: Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, took the stage in Cupertino, California, earlier this week to explain some of the new features and specs on the new iPad Pro. Between showing off a new display and camera, Schiller also took some digs at Windows and PC users, specifically calling out those users who are on computers more than five years old. Schiller said that 600 million people are using PCs that are over five years old. 'This is really sad,' he said.
C. Custer, reporter for Tech in Asia also didn't like Schiller's remarks. He writes: If Apple's really targeting those 600 million old PC users, it seems to have done a pretty poor job. It's been more than five years since I saw the need to upgrade my primary computer, and nothing about the iPad Pro presentation made me rethink my position at all. But of course, Apple isn't really targeting those people. That was mostly just a cheap shot, a jibe at all of us poor fools who haven't yet seen the light. That's why the audience laughed knowingly, and even applauded. "Using the same machine for five years? How barbaric! Thank god we live in civilized society, where everyone throws their gadgets out and buys new ones every two years."

An anonymous reader writes: In its latest annual report, Intel says that it will be moving away from its decade-old "tick-tock" strategy (PDF) for developing new chips. From the company's 10-K filing, "We expect to lengthen the amount of time we will utilize our 14nm and our next generation 10nm process technologies, further optimizing our products and process technologies while meeting the yearly market cadence for product introductions." Anand Tech's Ian Cutress explains, "Intel's Tick-Tock strategy has been the bedrock of their microprocessor dominance of the last decade. Throughout the tenure, every other year Intel would upgrade their fabrication plants to be able to produce processors with a smaller feature set, improving die area, power consumption, and slight optimizations of the microarchitecture, and in the years between the upgrades would launch a new set of processors based on a wholly new (sometimes paradigm shifting) microarchitecture for large performance upgrades. However, due to the difficulty of implementing a 'tick', the ever decreasing process node size and complexity therein, as reported previously with 14nm and the introduction of Kaby Lake, Intel's latest filing would suggest that 10nm will follow a similar pattern as 14nm by introducing a third stage to the cadence."

HughPickens.com writes: Bryant Jordan reports at Defense Tech that the Cognitive Science and Applications Team at the US Army's Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center is creating a computer-generated reality "dome" to immerse warfighters in a virtual environment that not only tests their skills, but allows Army researchers to assess soldier cognitive abilities and study the impact of real-world operational situations on decision-making, spatial memory and wayfinding. The dome is a concave virtual-reality system that provides a full 180-degree horizontal field, using high-density, front-projection to create a high-resolution, visual world where the simulations will be modeled on real-world locations. "The integration of multiple input modalities, along with multisensory feedback, increases the realism, immersion and engagement on behalf of users subjected to prolonged, workload-intensive activities," says Dr. Caroline Mahoney. "These novel integrations provide unprecedented opportunities to monitor and optimize human behavior during real-world task execution, and to evaluate and predict the impact of innovative human-systems technologies on operational performance." In the virtual dome, users can interact and alter the environment through hand-held and weapon-based devices, which control movement, orientation and weapon aiming. Future additions to the dome will include whole-body motion tracking, low-frequency vibration and directional wind. Vibro-tactile collision feedback — which combines vibration and touch to help give participants a physical sense of constraints in a virtual environment — will also be included.

Mickeycaskill writes: Google is to open 12 new data centers in the latest stage of a bitter war with rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. The first two facilities to open will be in Oregon and Tokyo, both of which will open next year. The rest will follow in 2017. Google says the new locations will allow customers to run applications closer to home, boosting latency, and of course benefiting from any local data protection laws. At present, Google has just four cloud regions, meaning this expansion will quadruple its sphere of influence. "With these new regions, even more applications become candidates to run on Cloud Platform, and get the benefits of Google-level scale and industry leading price/performance," said Varun Sakalkar, Google Cloud's product manager. Two bits says those were not his exact words.

An anonymous reader writes: Once seen as the underdog, Sony's PlayStation VR headset continues to hold its own against PC-based competitors Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The company announced last week that they won't ship the PSVR headset until October, but they also announced an attractive $399 price compared to the Rift at $599 and Vive at $799. And it appears the company's existing addressable market of 36 million PS4 owners are ready to get on board; Amazon U.S. opened pre-orders for the PSVR Launch Bundle this morning and sold out of its stock allocation in less than 10 minutes. Walmart befell the same fate quickly thereafter, though several other retailers in the U.S. are still showing pre-order stock.