Media

Start-Up Claims Immortality For Data With 'Stone-Like' Disc 261

Posted by timothy from the load-up-the-station-wagon-with-these dept.
CWmike writes "Start-up Millenniata and LG plan to soon release a new optical disc and read/write player that will store movies, photos or any other data forever. The data can be accessed using any current DVD or Blu-ray player. The M-Disc can be dipped in liquid nitrogen and then boiling water without harming it. It also has a Defense Department study (PDF) backing up the resiliency of its product compared with other leading optical disc competitors. The company would not disclose what material is used to produce the optical discs, referring to it only as a 'natural' substance that is 'stone-like.' Like DVDs and Blu-ray discs, the M-Disc platters are made up of multiple layers of material. But there is no reflective, or die, layer. Instead, during the recording process a laser 'etches' pits onto the substrate material."
AMD

AMD Enters Desktop Memory Market 65

Posted by Soulskill from the and-now-for-something-a-little-bit-different dept.
siliconbits writes "AMD has quietly released a new range of memory products and recycled the Radeon brand, which moves from graphics processing units to memory modules. According to the product page, AMD Radeon for systems are 'ideally' suited for the company's APU and CPU solutions and have been 'tested to the highest industry standards on AMD platforms.' Three different categories are currently on offer, roughly matching AMD's APU/CPU product categories; Entertainment, Ultra Pro and Enterprise. Oddly enough, the company is offering only 2GB modules with data rates at 1333.33MT/s and 1600MT/s, with 9-9-9 and 11-11-11 timings for the first two product ranges respectively."
Intel

Intel Details New Ultrabook Reference Designs 186

Posted by CmdrTaco from the smaller-is-better dept.
MojoKid writes "Earlier this year, Intel unveiled its plan to redefine the concept of a PC around an ultra thin-and-light chassis reminiscent of the Macbook Air and with a standard CPU TDP of just 15W. Intel has unveiled the reference specs for ultra-notebook products they're calling 'Ultrabooks.' The cheaper ultra-notebook model will be 21mm thick with a BOM (bill of materials) between $475-650. A second, thinner model (18mm thick) will have a BOM between $493-710. Unlike netbooks, Ultrabooks will target the full range of consumer notebooks with screen sizes ranging from 11-17 inches. Reports are surfacing that the new systems will eschew the use of module-based components in favor of directly soldering certain components to the motherboard. Other findings indicated that Intel and its partners have researched alternatives to an aluminum-based chassis with materials like fiberglass expected to dominate the segment."
Communications

Power Companies Brace For Solar Storms 111

Posted by timothy from the but-the-ice-cream-is-dripping-everywhere dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Three large explosions from the sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days that could affect communications and GPS satellites, leave thousands without power for weeks to months, and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin. 'The concern is if the electric grid lost a number of transformers during a single storm, replacing them would be difficult and time-consuming,' says Rich Lordan, senior technical executive for power delivery and utilization at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The largest solar storm in recorded history was in 1859, when communications infrastructure was limited to telegraphs. Some telegraph operators reported electric shocks, papers caught fire, and the Northern Lights appeared as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. The first of the three solar explosions from the sun already passed the Earth on Thursday with little impact and the second is passing the Earth now and 'seems to be stronger.' "We'll have to see what happens over the next few days," says space weather scientist Joseph Kunches. '[The third storm] could exacerbate the disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the second (storm) or do nothing at all.'"
Australia

Guide To Building a Cable That Improves iOS Exploits 184

Posted by timothy from the slurping-assistant dept.
mask.of.sanity writes "An Aussie network engineer has published a guide to building a serial cable connector that allows access to a secret kernel debugger hidden within Apple iOS. The debugger was a dormant iOS feature carried over from Apple OS, and seems to serves no function other than to allow hackers to build better exploits. The cable needs an external power source and a jailbroken device to access the debugger." We've mentioned Pollock's serial adapter kit before, modulo the kernel debugging abilities.
Hardware Hacking

Build Your Own Camera, Launch It Like a Grenade 117

Posted by timothy from the sorry-about-the-eye dept.
angry tapir writes "Meet the Firefly. Israeli defense contractor Rafael Armament Development Authority calls it a 'revolutionary concept in tactical intelligence,' but really it's a wireless camera that's shot 500 feet in the air by a grenade launcher. And if a couple of hackers at the Defcon hacking convention get their way, soon anyone will be able to buy this type of military grade technology for only US$500."
Robotics

Army Gives Robo Jeeps a Go 81

Posted by timothy from the don't-worry-yet dept.
jamesl writes with an excerpt from Defense Tech, which says the U.S. Army is sending "four [of] Lockheed's Squad Mission Support System (SMSS) robot jeeps to Afghanistan where they'll haul supplies for troops. The trucks are being sent there as part of a test program to see just how useful robot cargo trucks can be. The 11-foot long trucks can carry a half a ton of supplies for up to 125 miles after being delivered to the field in a CH-47 or CH-53 helo."
Portables

Eben Upton Talks About the Raspberry Pi USB Computer 82

Posted by timothy from the but-such-small-slices dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I contacted the Director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Eben Upton, and he graciously gave an interview pertaining to his foundation, the Raspberry Pi device, and how the device relates to robotics. The Raspberry Pi device is basically a $25 Linux PC on a credit card sized board! This microcomputer looks perfectly suited as a low cost, micro form factor, low power, PC performance robot brain."
Hardware Hacking

Autodesk + Instructables: For Makers? 77

Posted by timothy from the interesting-bedfellows dept.
ptorrone writes "MAKE magazine has published an in-depth look at what the recent acquisition of Instructables by Autodesk means for makers and the DIY movement. MAKE suggests it wasn't about getting the millions of members or projects at Instructables or upselling Autodesk tools. Instead, the acquisition was more about creating many Instructable-like communities around Autodesk's new free and trial tools including their 3D printing site and service, Autodesk123D."
Security

Defcon Hacks Defeat Card-And-Code Locks In Seconds 144

Posted by timothy from the hey-tsa-locks-are-awesome dept.
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "At the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas, Marc Weber Tobias and Toby Bluzmanis plan to demonstrate simple hardware hacks that expose critical security problems in Swiss lock firm Kaba's E-plex 5800 and its older 5000. Kaba markets the 5800 lock, which Bluzmmanis says can cost as much as $1,300, as the first to integrate code-based access controls with a new Department of Homeland Security standard that goes into effect next year and requires identifying credentials be used in secure facilities to control access. One attack uses a mallet to 'rap' open the lock, another opens the lock by putting a pin through the LED display light to ground a contact on the circuit board, and a third uses a wire inserted in the lock's back panel to hit a switch that resets its software."
Google

Google's Self Driving Car Crashes 244

Posted by timothy from the had-to-happen-one-day dept.
datapharmer writes "We've all read previous stories on slashdot about Google's driverless car, and some have even pondered if a crash would bring the end to robotic cars. For better or for worse, we will all find out soon, as the inevitable has occurred. The question remains, who is to blame. A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that 'Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car.'"
Transportation

Saving Gas Via Underpowered Death Traps 585

Posted by Soulskill from the wait-until-you-see-my-steel-plated-prius dept.
Harperdog writes with this excerpt from a story at Miller-McCune: "Yes, it's true that the fuel-economy standards the U.S. has been using cost lives. Economist Mark Jacobson has estimated that for every mile-per-gallon we raise the standards, 149 traffic fatalities occur per year. That would mean 1,490 deaths if the standards were raised from, say, 30 miles-per-gallon to 40. But this doesn't have to be the case. It's possible, Jacobson has concluded, to increase fuel efficiency without also decreasing safety. And if government officials are smart, they'll tailor the regulations behind the new standards to do this."
Android

Update Brings Android USB Mounting To Chromebooks 47

Posted by timothy from the now-merge-them-even-harder dept.
sfcrazy writes "Google has updated its stable channel for Chromebooks (Acer AC700, Samsung Series 5, and Cr-48). The latest version of Google chrome running on these devices is Chrome 13. The feature has added Google Cloud Print settings to Settings > Under the Hood. It now allows auto-connect using 3G, remove/forget added VPN connections and 802.1x support. The update brings the most needed feature — USB mounting of Android."
Networking

Harnessing Interference For Faster Wireless Data 91

Posted by timothy from the injecting-signal-into-the-noise dept.
holy_calamity writes "Inventor of the Quicktime codec Steve Perlman has unveiled a new wireless technology he claims can deliver thousands of times more bandwidth to mobile devices than existing technology. Each user is served by multiple transmitters, which send out waves carefully designed to combine into a data signal only at a device's location. That technique enables every user to be targeted with a signal with the same total bandwidth that would usually be shared between users, says Perlman."
Input Devices

Open Source Gesture Recognition For Kinect SDK 25

Posted by timothy from the everybody-will-have-been-kung-fu-fighting dept.
Rymix writes "I have been working with a new internet-friend of mine to produce an open source gesture recording and recognition engine for Kinect SDK. It's based on the Dynamic Time Warping technique and allows developers to record their own gestures and reliably recognise them. It's currently 2D but 3D is an easy development, coming soon. We're looking for community take-up and contribution to this project — it could help a lot of people with rapid prototyping and could even be used in production solutions (within the Kinect SDK's terms of use, of course!)."
Power

Smart Power Grid Could Wreak Havoc On Itself 331

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the off-is-the-new-on dept.
MrSeb writes "Smart power grid monitoring that lets you pick the exact cheapest time to run the dishwasher or recharge your electric car may put too much power (so to speak) in the hands of the consumer, according to a new study by MIT. Researchers say that users receiving minute-by-minute pricing information might cycle off-peak power use more rapidly than utilities can spool up their power plants. In other words, it's OK if you're the only person charging your Chevy Volt at 2am in the morning, but if a whole town does it exactly the same time... there will be issues."
Power

Monitor Household Energy From Your Smartphone 58

Posted by samzenpus from the power-in-your-pocket dept.
kkleiner writes "People Power 1.0 is an open and extensible cloud-based platform that allows you to monitor up-to-the-minute household energy usage from an iPhone or Android smartphone. Part of the growing Internet of Things, People Power 1.0 brings energy monitoring to the common household. It works through your house router to connect to the Internet and send data to your smartphone. Or you can measure energy consumption from individual devices with People Power's GreenX Powerstrips."

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