Day: January 3, 2013

Leader of BitTorrent piracy ring sentenced to five years in prison

The leader of the notorious IMAGiNE BitTorrent piracy ring, Jeramiah Perkins, was sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison, the largest sentence for the group’s five top administrators. In August 2012, Perkins pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. After being given the maximum sentence today, Perkins was also ordered to serve three years under “supervised release” and must pay $15,000 in restitution. As we reported in April, the group used infrared and FM receivers and camcorders to capture new releases in movie theaters. In a statement , the Department of Justice cited testimony from the Motion Picture Association of America, calling the group “the most prolific motion picture piracy release group operating on the Internet from September 2009 through September 2011.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Leader of BitTorrent piracy ring sentenced to five years in prison

Corning introduces Gorilla Glass 3, promises ape-sized improvements in durability

Once , twice , three times a gorilla? Corning’s primate-themed glass is ready for a third go-round, and as you’d expect, it’s even tougher than the first two iterations. Gorilla Glass 3 has been improved at the molecular level, incorporating a proprietary feature called Native Damage Resistance (NDR). According to Corning, NDR reduces the propagation of flaws, the appearance of scratches and does a better job of maintaining the overall retained strength of the glass. As a result, GG3 claims a three-fold improvement in scratch resistance, 40 percent reduction in the number of visible scratches and 50 percent boost in retained strength after the glass becomes flawed. None of this actually means your phone or tablet will survive a five-foot drop onto concrete, granted, but you’ll at least feel more comfortable keeping your keys somewhere close by. The full press release can be found below. Continue reading Corning introduces Gorilla Glass 3, promises ape-sized improvements in durability Filed under: Cellphones , Displays , Tablets , Mobile Comments

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Corning introduces Gorilla Glass 3, promises ape-sized improvements in durability

Open-Hardware Licensed Handheld Software-Defined Radio In the Works

An anonymous reader writes “Chris Testa recently presented at TAPR Digital Communications Conference and annouced his development work on a hand-held software defined radio. Running uClinux on an ARM Corex-M3 coupled to a Flash-based FPGA, it will be capable of receiving and transmitting from 100MHz to 1GHz. Designed to be low power, Chris has designed the radio primarily with the Amateur 2m and 70cm bands in mind. Currently in early prototyping stage, Chris intends to release the design under the TAPR Open Hardware License.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Open-Hardware Licensed Handheld Software-Defined Radio In the Works

Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal

There’s a cloud hanging over the second city and it belongs to Microsoft . In a release issued today, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans to migrate the city’s 30,000 civil servants to a cloud-based solution for email and all desktop applications . Apart from the $400,000 the four-year deal is projected to save taxpayers annually, the move to Microsoft’s cloud computing for government platform will also help to bolster efficiency and streamline communication internally, as the city goes from three conflicting email systems to just one. According to the city’s Department of Innovation and Technology, this department-wide transition should reach completion by the end of 2013. It’s not the Windy City’s first big leap into remote storage — its hosted Department of Aviation data there for some time — but it does mark Emanuel’s commitment to modernization . Hit up the break for the city’s official PR. [Chicago photo credit: Nimesh M / Flickr ] Continue reading Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal Filed under: Internet , Microsoft Comments Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

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Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal

The Woodward Effect allows for endless supplies of starship fuel

One of the major problems with traveling through space is the need to carry fuel. Scientists have endlessly sought after sources of perpetual, portable fuel for spacecraft. But maybe that was the wrong approach? More »

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The Woodward Effect allows for endless supplies of starship fuel

Make Sure You’re Getting All Your Essential Vitamins from Food with This Reference Guide

The essential vitamins your body needs can all be found in readily-available foods. This handy chart shows you which foods are rich in each vitamin, so you can plan your meals accordingly. More »

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Make Sure You’re Getting All Your Essential Vitamins from Food with This Reference Guide

Quad-Core Stick PC Runs Ubuntu

New submitter asola writes with this cool piece of small (ha!) news from Liliputing: “This Freescale i.MX6-quad based stick will officially support Ubuntu in addition to Android. This is a first among the newfangled category of ARM-based stick PCs. This Ubuntu may very well have the hw accelerated Gstreamer plugins created by Freescale for the i.MX6 so full HD video playing will be available under Ubuntu as well.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Quad-Core Stick PC Runs Ubuntu

Asus Is Putting Sick 3D Gesture Controls in Its PCs This Year

Leap Motion’s amazing-looking gesture control debuted last May, and has had developers crawling all over it ever since. Now, Asus has announced that it’s teaming up with the company to produce a range of computers using the tech—and they should be here this year. More »

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Asus Is Putting Sick 3D Gesture Controls in Its PCs This Year

Samsung’s Series 7 Ultra: Your MacBook Air Might Get Jealous

Sure, Samsung’s laptops of late have borne more than a passing resemblance to Apple’s MacBook line. The skinny, shiny Series 7 Ultra is no exception. But so what? In the Age of Windows 8, that just means you get basically the same pretty package with the added bonus of a touchscreen and some spec improvements. Not bad! More »

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Samsung’s Series 7 Ultra: Your MacBook Air Might Get Jealous