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Technical (News/Activism)

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  • Louis DeChiaro of US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) on Replicating Pons and Fleischmann

    10/06/2015 1:38:07 PM PDT · by wattsgnu · 31 replies
    E-Cat World ^ | October 6, 2015 | Frank Acland
    Thanks to Adrian Ashfield for sharing this information with me who tells me this information comes from the research notes of Louis F. DeChiaro, Ph.D, a physicist with the US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), Dahlgren Warfare Center. I am told this text has been cleared for public dissemination. As for duplicating the Pons and Fleischmann results, we now have a much better understanding of the phenomenon, and the list of prerequisite conditions is rather lengthy. Failure to meet even one of those conditions results in zero excess energy output. The data suggest that there may be more than one...
  • Why a totally eclipsed moon looks red

    09/27/2015 6:24:09 AM PDT · by COBOL2Java · 20 replies
    EarthSky ^ | 25 September 2015 | EarthSky
    If Earth didn’t have an atmosphere, then, when the moon was entirely eclipsed within Earth’s shadow, the moon would would appear dark … During a lunar eclipse, you’ll see the Earth’s shadow creeping across the moon’s face. The shadow will appear dark, like a bite taken out of a cookie, until the shadow completely covers the moon. Then, during the breathtaking time of totality, the shadow on the moon’s face often suddenly changes. Instead of dark, it appears red. Why? The reason stems from the air we breathe. During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth lies directly between the sun...
  • Report: BMW X3 Diesel Also Emits More Than Legal Limit [Update]

    09/25/2015 6:47:20 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 64 replies
    www.roadandtrack.com ^ | Sep 24, 2015 @ 9:39 AM | By Robert Sorokanich
    In the wake of the VW diesel scandal, German magazine Autobild found the Euro-market BMW X3 xDrive 20d also exceeds emissions limits by a significant amount. Volkswagen's unfolding diesel emissions crisis may prove to involve other automakers as well: German magazine Autobild reports that ​a German-market, diesel-powered BMW X3 xDrive 20d put out 11 times the legal limit of pollution in a test commissioned by the magazine. (Update below) Automotive News, which translated the Autobild report, explains that the BMW was tested by the International Council on Clean Transportation, the same group whose findings led U.S. regulators to investigate Volkswagen's...
  • AVG Anti-virus freeware privacy change: AV will sell your web browser history to advertisers

    09/22/2015 4:58:57 AM PDT · by MarchonDC09122009 · 32 replies
    techsecurityupdate ^ | 09/22/2015 | John Leyden
    http://www.techsecurityupdate.com/avg-to-flog-your-web-browsing-search-history-from-mid-october/ AVG to flog your web browsing, search history from mid-October September 21, 2015 John Leyden Uncategorized Comments Off Your secrets sold to advertisers Changes in the privacy policy of AVG's free antivirus doodad will allow it to collect your web browsing and search history – and sell it to advertisers to bankroll its freemium security software products.…
  • TCAS, ADS-B Unreliable in Southeast U.S. Beginning Sept. 2

    09/03/2015 7:09:05 AM PDT · by b4its2late · 9 replies
    National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) ^ | September 1, 2015 | National Business Aviation Association
    Due to military activities, the TCAS and ADS-B surveillance may be unreliable in the airspace over Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and extending approximately 200 nautical miles offshore, from 1 a.m. EDT (0500z) Sept. 2 until midnight EDT (0459z) on Oct. 1. Pilots are advised that the traffic alert and TCAS may fail to establish tracks on nearby aircraft and may fail to receive traffic alerts (TA) or resolution advisories (RA). Operators should be aware that tracks may first appear within close proximity to their aircraft, and may immediately go into TA/RA status. Pilots are advised to...
  • Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The world’s largest hard drive

    08/16/2015 4:56:03 PM PDT · by TigerLikesRooster · 84 replies
    arstechnica ^ | Aug 13, 2015 | Sebastian Anthony
    Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The world’s largest hard drive Third-generation 3D V-NAND is now up to 48 TLC layers and 256Gbit per die. by Sebastian Anthony - Aug 13, 2015 9:16pm JST At the Flash Memory Summit in California, Samsung has unveiled what appears to be the world's largest hard drive—and somewhat surprisingly, it uses NAND flash chips rather than spinning platters. The rather boringly named PM1633a, which is being targeted at the enterprise market, manages to cram almost 16 terabytes into a 2.5-inch SSD package. By comparison, the largest conventional hard drives made by Seagate and Western Digital...
  • You've been Drudged! Malware-squirting ads appear on websites with 100+ million visitors

    08/15/2015 8:11:26 AM PDT · by snarkpup · 56 replies
    The Register ^ | 14 Aug 2015 at 22:45 | Shaun Nichols
    Internet lowlives who used Yahoo! ads to infect potentially countless PCs with malware have struck again – using adverts on popular websites to reach millions more people. Security researchers at MalwareBytes this week discovered the crooks running another massive campaign of ads that use the Angler Exploit Kit to infiltrate Windows PCs via vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and web browsers. Prominent websites including the Drudge Report and Weather.com – a pair of sites whose total traffic alone amounts to nearly 200 million visits per month – were apparently inadvertently carrying the ads, putting millions of netizens at risk.
  • Apple to zap DYLD bug in forthcoming Mac OS X security update

    08/06/2015 9:24:25 AM PDT · by for-q-clinton · 8 replies
    Trusted Reviews ^ | 5 Aug 2015 | Chris Smith
    Apple is reportedly working on a fix to eradicate a dangerous bug that could allow unauthorised users access to Mac OS X Yosemite machines. The Guardian’s sources say Apple will release a security update to wipe out the so-called "zero day" DYLD bug as soon as possible. The “privilege escalation” bug potentially allows third parties to gain administrator access to a Mac without a password. The fix for Mac OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite will arrive shortly, ending worries that the vulnerability wouldn't be plugged before the next version, El Capitan, comes this autumn. In the meantime, the paper says Apple...
  • New Zero-Day Exploit Can Completely Brick Your Mac

    08/06/2015 8:50:39 AM PDT · by for-q-clinton · 17 replies
    Techcrunch ^ | 5 Aug 2015 | Romain Dillet (@romaindillet)
    It’s Black Hat season, meaning that we are getting a new batch of zero-day exploits showing how insecure our gadgets are. Xeno Kovah and Trammell Hudson found a serious zero-day vulnerability in OS X letting malware creators completely brick your Mac without any way to reset it to its factory status. Apple told The Guardian that it is working on a fix for both Yosemite and El Capitan. This zero-day exploit dubbed Thunderstrike 2 targets your Mac’s firmware thanks to an attached Thunderbolt accessory, such as an Ethernet adaptor or an external hard drive. After receiving the code via a...
  • DREAM OF FREE AND OPEN INTERNET DYING, LAWYER SAYS

    08/06/2015 7:43:19 AM PDT · by Biggirl · 12 replies
    Associated Press ^ | August 6, 2015 | Bree Fowler
    LAS VEGAS (AP) -- The dream of a free and open Internet is slowly being killed by overregulation, censorship and bad laws that don't stop the right people, a top computer crime defense lawyer says.
  • Concorde Mark 2: Airbus files plans for new supersonic jet

    08/04/2015 10:08:51 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 47 replies
    www.telegraph.co.uk ^ | 3:20PM BST 04 Aug 2015 | By Alan Tovey, Industry Editor
    New jet could cut flight time from London to New York to just one hour The new jet could fly from London to New York in an hour - opening up the possibility of a transatlantic return journey in a day. Concorde 2 would be capable of flying more than four times the speed of sound – or more than 2,500mph, according to documents lodged with the US Patent Office by the aerospace and defence group The filings refer to an “ultra-rapid air vehicle” and “method of aerial locomotion” for the aircraft, which would cruise at an altitude of more...
  • If you installed Windows 10 and like privacy, you checked the defaults, right? Oh dear

    08/04/2015 7:33:57 AM PDT · by snarkpup · 33 replies
    The Register ^ | 3 Aug 2015 at 19:52 | Chris Williams
    Here's a quick FYI: if you installed Windows 10, and in a rush to try out Microsoft's new operating system, you clicked through the default settings without looking, you may want to look again. ... There's a handy guide here to the settings you need to look out for during the install and afterwards.
  • How your smartphone's battery life can be used to invade your privacy

    08/04/2015 6:33:19 AM PDT · by TigerLikesRooster · 24 replies
    The Guardian ^ | Tuesday 4 August 2015 | Alex Hern
    How your smartphone's battery life can be used to invade your privacy A group of researchers have demonstrated how to track users with nothing more than their remaining battery power, which could compromise privacy Alex Hern Tuesday 4 August 2015 08.18 BST A little-known feature of the HTML5 specification means that websites can find out how much battery power a visitor has left on their laptop or smartphone – and now, security researchers have warned that that information can be used to track browsers online. The battery status API is currently supported in the Firefox, Opera and Chrome browsers, and...
  • Leggy ROBOT INSECT WALKS on WATER before flawlessly LEAPING OFF

    08/02/2015 4:16:51 AM PDT · by TigerLikesRooster · 11 replies
    The Register ^ | 1 Aug 2015 | Kelly Fiveash
    Leggy ROBOT INSECT WALKS on WATER before flawlessly LEAPING OFF Artificial system replicates biological movement 1 Aug 2015 at 14:20, Kelly Fiveash Vid Scientists have created a leggy microrobot that mimics the actions of a water strider. They wanted to replicate the movement of the semi-aquatic insects to try to have a better understanding of how they are able to jump from watery surfaces with the same amount of force and height as a leap from rigid ground. Boffins from Seoul National University, Korea (SNU), Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and...
  • Heading Toward An EMP Catastrophe

    08/01/2015 11:09:02 AM PDT · by TXnMA · 102 replies
    Family Security Matters ^ | July 23, 2015 | AMBASSADOR R. JAMES WOOLSEY, DR. PETER VINCENT PRY
    Texas State Senator Bob Hall, a former USAF Colonel and himself an EMP expert, characterizes as "equivalent to treason" the behavior of the electric utilities and their lobbyists: "As a Texas State Senator who tried in the 2015 legislative session to get a bill passed to harden the Texas grid against an EMP attack or nature's GMD, I learned first hand the strong control the electric power company lobby has on elected officials. We did manage to get a weak bill passed in the Senate but the power companies had it killed in the House. A very deceitful document which...
  • US Navy will field 100 kilowatt or stronger lasers and ten shot per minute railguns by 2020

    07/31/2015 1:43:44 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 31 replies
    nextbigfuture.com ^ | 07-28-2015 | Author: Brian Wang
    The US Navy is pursuing a multi-pronged approach to fielding energy weapons by the end of the decade, with the hopes of upgrading its 30 kilowatt laser gun to 100 kw or more, and giving its electromagnetic railgun a higher repetition rate. Rear Adm. Bryant Fuller, chief engineer at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), said in a panel presentation at the Directed Energy Summit, hosted by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Booz Allen Hamilton, that both follow-on technologies should be in the hands of sailors in the fleet by 2020. “Sometime in the very near future” the...
  • The First White Laser

    07/29/2015 3:54:30 PM PDT · by Talisker · 49 replies
    IEEE Spectrum ^ | 27 Jul 2015 | Charles Q. Choi
    Scientists and engineers at Arizona State University, in Tempe, have created the first lasers that can shine light over the full spectrum of visible colors. The device’s inventors suggest the laser could find use in video displays, solid-state lighting, and a laser-based version of Wi-Fi. Although previous research has created red, blue, green and other lasers, each of these lasers usually only emitted one color of light. Creating a monolithic structure capable of emitting red, green, and blue all at once has proven difficult because it requires combining very different semiconductors. Growing such mismatched crystals right next to each other...
  • Researchers predict material with record-setting melting point [4,400 kelvins / 7,460°F]

    07/27/2015 10:36:43 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 45 replies
    phys.org ^ | 07-27-2015 | by Kevin Stacey & Provided by: Brown University
    Using powerful computer simulations, researchers from Brown University have identified a material with a higher melting point than any known substance. The computations, described in the journal Physical Review B (Rapid Communications), showed that a material made with just the right amounts of hafnium, nitrogen, and carbon would have a melting point of more than 4,400 kelvins (7,460 degrees Fahrenheit). That's about two-thirds the temperature at the surface of the sun, and 200 kelvins higher than the highest melting point ever recorded experimentally. The experimental record-holder is a substance made from the elements hafnium, tantalum, and carbon (Hf-Ta-C). But these...
  • How NASA might build its very first warp drive

    07/24/2015 12:20:51 AM PDT · by MinorityRepublican · 31 replies
    io9 ^ | 11/26/12 | George Dvorsky
    Physicist Harold White stunned the aeronautics world when he announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a faster-than-light warp drive. His proposed design, an ingenious re-imagining of an Alcubierre Drive, may eventually result in an engine that can transport a spacecraft to the nearest star in a matter of weeks — and all without violating Einstein's law of relativity.
  • Delta 4 Launch Coverage - Wideband Global System WGS7

    07/23/2015 4:35:04 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 11 replies
    Spaceflight Now ^ | July 21, 2015 | Justin Ray
    2326 GMT (7:26 p.m. EDT) The first stage liquid oxygen tank is conditioned for flight. 2322 GMT (7:22 p.m. EDT) Launch minus 45 minutes! This is the ascent timeline to be followed by the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket in launching the Air Force’s WGS 7 communications satellite. 2316 GMT (7:16 p.m. EDT) The flight slews and commanding tests for the vehicle steering systems are being performed. The first stage Common Booster Core, the strap-on solid rocket motors and upper stage engine steering checks were run through a pre-launch test pattern. 2310 GMT (7:10 p.m. EDT) The odds of...