Author: kenmay

Amtrak’s next-generation high-speed trains arrive in 2021

While Amtrak is a perfectly fine way to travel, especially on the Eastern seaboard, the country’s publicly owned rail company doesn’t exactly have a high-tech reputation. That will change in the next few years, thanks to a massive $2.45 billion loan from the federal government, which the company plans to invest in 28 next-generation train sets and significant upgrades to the Northeast Corridor. About $2 billion of that federal loan, which Vice President “Amtrak” Joe Biden announced Friday at his home station in Wilmington, Delaware, will be put towards those new train cars, which will boost the Acela fleet by 40 percent when they enter service in 2021. According to Amtrak, the new trains will offer one-third more passenger seating, more outlets and USB ports, improved WiFi quality ( finally ), and top speeds of 186 mph. (For comparison, Japan’s high-speed rail lines top out at 200 mph .) Thanks to a lighter, more aerodynamic design, the new trains should also cut energy consumption by about 20 percent. The trains will be 95 percent “Made in America” and built in New York state by Alstom . As for the other $450 million of that federal loan, the company will be putting the money towards revitalizing four stations — including Union Station in Washington DC and Penn Station in New York City — as well as some much-needed infrastructure improvements between DC and Boston. Source: Amtrak , Delaware Online

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Amtrak’s next-generation high-speed trains arrive in 2021

Opera warns that its web sync service was hacked

Data breaches happen all too often , but it’s rare that they target your browser’s sync service… and unfortunately, Opera just became one of those exceptions. The company is warning users that it detected a hack in its sync system that may have given intruders access to login details. While your passwords are likely safe (all synced passwords are encrypted, for example), Opera isn’t risking anything. It’s resetting all sync account passwords, and it recommends that you change any linked third-party passwords to be on the safe side. Opera is quick to note that the majority of its 350 million users won’t be affected, since most don’t use sync. However, this still leaves about 1.7 million active users at risk, and there are likely more inactive users who are storing useful passwords. True, it’s doubtful that the breach will lead to serious damage, but this certainly isn’t the kind of news Opera would want following its sale to a Chinese security giant . [Thanks, Kristy] Source: Opera Security

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Opera warns that its web sync service was hacked

Enhanced DMV facial recognition technology helps NY nab 100 ID thieves

Enlarge (credit: New York State Department of Motor Vehicles) In January, the New York State DMV enhanced its facial recognition technology by doubling the number of measurement points on a driver’s photograph, a move the state’s governor says has led to the arrest of 100 suspected identity thieves and opened 900 unsolved cases. In all, since New York implemented facial recognition technology in 2010, more than 14,000 people have been hampered trying to get multiple licenses. The newly upgraded system increases the measurement points of a driver’s license picture from 64 to 128. The DMV said this vastly improves its chances of matching new photographs with one already in a database of 16 million photos. As many as 8,000 new pictures are added each day. “Facial recognition plays a critical role in keeping our communities safer by cracking down on individuals who break the law,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement. “New York is leading the nation with this technology, and the results from our use of this enhanced technology are proof positive that its use is vital in making our roads safer and holding fraudsters accountable.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Enhanced DMV facial recognition technology helps NY nab 100 ID thieves

Microsoft Lost a City Because They Used Wikipedia Data

“Microsoft can’t tell North from South on Bing Maps, ” joked The Register, reporting that Microsoft’s site had “misplaced Melbourne, the four-million-inhabitant capital of the Australian State of Victoria.” Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: Though they’re trying to minimise it, the recent relocation of Melbourne Australia to the ocean east of Japan in Microsoft’s flagship mapping application is blamed on someone having flipped a sign in the latitude given for the city’s Wikipedia page. Which may or may not be true. But the simple stupidity of using a globally-editable data source for feeding a mapping and navigation system is … “awesome” is (for once) an appropriate word. Well, it’s Bing, so at least no-one was actually using it. “Bing’s not alone in finding Australia hard to navigate, ” reports The Register. “In 2012 police warned not to use Apple Maps as it directed those seeking the rural Victorian town of Mildura into the middle of a desert.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Lost a City Because They Used Wikipedia Data

New Ransomware Poses As A Windows Update

Slashdot reader MojoKid quotes an article from Hot Hardware: A security researcher for AVG has discovered a new piece of ransomware called Fantom that masquerades as a critical Windows update. Victims who fall for the ruse will see a Windows screen acting like it’s installing the update, but what’s really happening is that the user’s documents and files are being encrypted in the background… The scam starts with a pop-up labeled as a critical update from Microsoft. Once a user decides to apply the fake update, it extracts files and executes an embedded program called WindowsUpdate.exe… As with other EDA2 ransomware, Fantom generates a random AES-128 key, encrypts it using RSA, and then uploads it to the culprit. From there, Fantom targets specific file extensions and encrypts those files using AES-128 encryption… Users affected by this are instructed to email the culprit for payment instructions. While the ransomware is busy encrypting your files, it displays Microsoft’s standard warning about not turning off the computer while the “update” is in progress. Pressing Ctrl+F4 closes that window, according to the article, “but that doesn’t stop the ransomware from encrypting files in the background.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Ransomware Poses As A Windows Update

Strange galaxy is made almost entirely of dark matter

A galaxy isn’t big just because it has many stars in it. A worldwide research group has discovered that a galaxy in the Coma cluster, Dragonfly 44, consists of 99.99 percent dark matter . It has about as much mass as our own Milky Way galaxy, but far fewer stars. The team determined the presence of the invisible, mysterious substance based on the motions of the stars themselves — there were too few of them to be moving so quickly. If there weren’t a gravitational force like dark matter to hold them together, those stars would simply fly away. Dragonfly 44 raises more questions than it solves right now. The team’s Roberto Abraham tells Wired that it’s unclear as to how a dark matter galaxy on this scale could form. Previous examples were much smaller. It’s possible that the formations of the stars (very dense clusters) are a clue, but that’s as far as astronomers can go right now. The hope is that someone will find a similar galaxy closer to home, increasing the chances of finding a dark matter particle and making some sense out a baffling (but virtually ubiquitous) aspect of the universe. Via: Wired Source: Astrophysical Journal Letters

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Strange galaxy is made almost entirely of dark matter

On Saturday Juno flew to within 4,200km of Jupiter—and survived

Enlarge / Jupiter’s north polar region as Juno was This view of Jupiter was taken on August 27, when Juno was 703,000km away, and closing fast. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS) NASA’s daring Juno spacecraft must fly into the heart of Jupiter’s deadly radiation belts to complete its mission. So far, so good. On Saturday morning, the spacecraft made its first close approach to Jupiter, flying to within 4,200km of the giant of the Solar System. That is less than the distance from New York to Los Angeles. The spacecraft shot past Jupiter at the speed of 208,000km/hr relative to the planet, and mission managers pronounced that Juno was in good health. “Early post-flyby telemetry indicates that everything worked as planned and Juno is firing on all cylinders,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Saturday’s flyby, at 9:44am ET, marked the first time Juno had activated its entire complement of nine scientific instruments and turned them toward Jupiter. Mission managers said early returns from the data were promising, but cautioned it would take several more days to download all of the information collected by the spacecraft, and to begin to assess what it means. Although photography is not the principal aim of the mission, NASA intends to release images taken during the flyby during the next week or so. The pictures are expected to include the highest-ever resolution views of Jupiter’s atmosphere, and the first good views of both the gas giant’s poles. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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On Saturday Juno flew to within 4,200km of Jupiter—and survived

Floating Solar Device Boils Water Without Mirrors

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers from MIT and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, led by George Ni, describe a prototype design that boils water under ambient sunlight. Central to their floating solar device is a “selective absorber” — a material that both absorbs the solar portion of the electromagnetic spectrum well and emits little back as infrared heat energy. For this, the researchers turn to a blue-black commercial coating commonly used in solar photovoltaic panels. The rest of the puzzle involves further minimizing heat loss from that absorber, either through convection of the air above it or conduction of heat into the water below the floating prototype. The construction of the device is surprisingly simple. At the bottom, there is a thick, 10-centimeter-diameter puck of polystyrene foam. That insulates the heating action from the water and makes the whole thing float. A cotton wick occupies a hole drilled through the foam, which is splayed and pinned down by a square of thin fabric on the top side. This ensures that the collected solar heat is being focused into a minute volume of water. The selective absorber coats a disc of copper that sits on top of the fabric. Slots cut in the copper allow water vapor from the wick to pass through. And the crowning piece of this technological achievement? Bubble wrap. It insulates the top side of the absorber, with slots cut through the plastic to let the water vapor out. Tests in the lab and on the MIT roof showed that, under ambient sunlight, the absorber warmed up to 100 degrees Celsius in about five minutes and started making steam. That’s a first. The study has been published in two separate Nature articles: “Steam by thermal concentration” and “Steam generation under one sun enabled by a floating structure with thermal concentration.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Floating Solar Device Boils Water Without Mirrors

FBI Raids SAT Critic Over Leaked Test Questions

The Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant on the home of Manuel Alfaro, former executive director of assessment design and development at the College Board, which develops the SAT, an aptitude test for college bound high schoolers, according to a report by Reuters . Read more…

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FBI Raids SAT Critic Over Leaked Test Questions