Scientists have discovered eight new species of amblypygid—a special kind of arachnid with a pair of whip-like legs. This is a big deal. Amblypygids are not well-documented, which is a shame, considering we see them every evening in our nightmares. Read more…
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These Eight New Whip-Wielding Spiders Will Haunt Your Nightmares
Sea butterflies are snails that have inverted themselves. Instead of using their flesh (via a foot) to crawl on the sea floor, they turned upside down and make their protruding bodies into “wings.” When scientists studied this unusual motion, they found the sea butterflies move exactly like fruit flies and other small insects. Read more…
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A ‘Sea Butterfly’ Swims the Same Way Insects Fly
Enlarge / Dell’s old Latitude E6410 becomes a modern Chromebook. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) A few months ago, we wrote about CloudReady , a version of the open source Chromium OS from Neverware that can transform older Windows PCs into what are essentially Chromebooks (give or take a couple of media codecs and other features). Neverware takes the Chromium OS code provided by Google and does all the hard work of testing and maintaining driver compatibility and providing updates, the same things that Google handles for actual Chromebooks. The OS is aimed at schools that either want to move to Chromebooks but can’t afford the cost of all-new hardware or schools that have already begun a transition to Chromebooks but want to repurpose old hardware they already have. Today, Neverware announced a new version of CloudReady aimed at schools and individuals who want to try the software on their PCs without losing the capability to run Windows. CloudReady version 45.3 can be installed on any system with an existing UEFI-mode installation of Windows 7, 8, or 10 and 32GB of free disk space. You can find detailed installation directions on Neverware’s site. The UEFI requirement means that the list of PCs that support dual-booting is much shorter than the normal CloudReady support list, so this won’t be of much use to people with older BIOS-based PCs and Windows installations. But if you happen to have a device on the list, and you want to give the software a spin, you can download the free version from Neverware’s site. The fully featured version that supports Google’s Chrome OS management console costs $59 per machine for an unlimited license or $25 for a one-year license. Read on Ars Technica | Comments
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Chrome OS distro for regular PCs can now dual-boot with Windows
An anonymous reader writes: An IoT security research company has discovered that a DVR model manufactured by MVPower includes a backdoor-like feature in its code that takes a screenshot of your CCTV feed and sends it to an email address hosted somewhere in China. The device’s firmware is based on an open source project from GitHub that was pulled by its developer when someone confronted him about the backdoor. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Backdoor In MVPower DVR Firmware Sends CCTV Stills To an Email Address In China
Fancy seeing the Daytona 500 from the perspective of the pit crew? Now you can, thanks to a new five-year deal signed between Fox Sports and NextVR . The pair are planning to broadcast a series of major sporting events in VR , with the deal kicking off at this year’s edition of the great American race. If you own a GearVR headset and a compatible phone, you’ll be able to watch the race from the stands, starting line, middle of the infield and the aforementioned pit lane. In addition, the VR stream will have dedicated audio commentary and pop-up graphics telling you who’s in pole position. It’s not the first time that the two companies have teamed up to share a sporting event, having previously shown a professional boxing event in the format. This deal, however, makes a big step forward for NextVR, which is quickly cementing itself as the premier VR streaming service for all of the events you want to see. After all, it was this firm that brought users the first NBA games in VR as well as the republican and democratic presidential debates . As before, the Daytona 500 will be free-to-view and will kick off at 1pm ET on Sunday, February 21st. Now, it’s not clear yet if NextVR is going to produce 360-degree footage for the event, or if it’ll stick to 180-degree video. When it broadcast the Warriors/Pelicans game at the start of the season, it didn’t bother to film the action from the stands behind you. We’ve contacted the company to find out what the situation is this time, and will let you know when they’ve told us.
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Daytona 500 will be broadcast in VR
Games on devices of all kinds could soon be running better because Vulkan , the successor to OpenGL, has finally been released officially. The new standard gives developers low-level access to discrete and on-chip graphics, helping them avoid the layers of hardware overhead that normally slow things down. Khronos, the open-source group behind the standard, says it also reduces CPU overhead and improves multi-threaded performance. Delayed for several months, the version 1.0 driver is based on AMD’s proprietary Mantle standard. Similar technology is used in the Xbox One and PS4 consoles to help them make the most of their relatively modest specs. On the PC side, Vulkan will support Linux and Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. So far, official drivers are available for Intel graphics and NVIDIA products. AMD has beta drivers but still hasn’t released a final conforming version, ironically. The low-level hardware support in Vulkan makes it similar to DirectX 12 , which Microsoft released in 2014. DirectX 12 will still be popular with Windows 10 game developers, but Vulkan has the advantage of working with older Windows systems. As the successor to OpenGL, it could also attract developers like Adobe, which uses OpenGL for Photoshop and other apps. For apps that don’t need maximum performance, Khronos will still support and update OpenGL. On mobile, today Qualcomm is announcing that its flagship Snapdragon 820 processor will be the first to play nice with Vulkan. More specifically, the Adreno 530 GPU inside will support both the graphics framework and compute, which means that applications that require additional processing power can tap into the GPU. The company is also pledging to add drivers for other Adrenos in the 4xx and 5xx range, and we imagine more chip-makers — not least Intel and Nvidia — will offer support soon. Apple was initially a part of the Khronos working group, but stepped away from it to develop its Metal API (it’s still a member of the Khronos consortium). Both Macs and mobile iOS devices use Metal, which offers developers a mix of low- and high-level graphics access. That said, Imagination, which designs the PowerVR cores inside the iPhone and iPad, is part of the Khronos group, so support for the standard could come at some point. The Vulkan standard is also important to Valve, who wants it to bring big performance improvements to the modest hardware in its Steam Machines . However, so far there are no Vulkan games that use Valve’s Source 2 engine, nor are there any on Unity or Unreal Engine. For now, the only Vulkan-based game to officially launch is The Talos Principal (pictured above) which should be available soon on Steam. Source: Khronos
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OpenGL’s successor is ready to improve gaming graphics
The US Department of Defense announced today that it is to standardize on Windows 10. Over the course of the next year, some 4 million systems will be upgraded to Microsoft’s latest operating system in what must be the largest enterprise deployment of the operating system worldwide. This is a followup to a November order to upgrade systems in Combatant Commands, Service Agencies, and Field Activities to the operating system. The rationale is the government’s desire to protect better against security breaches and reduce IT costs by streamlining on a single platform. Windows 10 is better protected against security flaws than its predecessors, making it a tougher target for attackers. In tandem with this, the government has given the Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Book all the relevant certifications to allow those systems to be included on the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Unified Capabilities (UC) Approved Products List (APL). This means that DoD agencies can now buy and use Surface family hardware in its deployments. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Department of Defense standardizes on Windows 10, certifies Surfaces
Lucas123 writes: Perhaps in an attempt to get out ahead of the consumer 3D printing market, which has allowed popular toys such as Legos to be replicated, Mattel today announced it would begin shipping its $300 fused filament fabricator machine in October. Mattel’s ThingMaker at-home toy-making device, reinvents the company’s iconic 1960s toy by the same name. The new ThingMaker allows users to upload design files via Mattel’s proprietary Design App, which works on Android or iOS devices. The 3D printer can then print single-part toys or print hundreds of different parts to be assembled into toys using ball-and-socket joints. Mattel’s ThingMaker Design App is based on Autodesk’s Spark, an open 3D printing platform that provides extensible APIs for each stage of the 3D printing workflow. Because it’s based on an open architecture, the ThingMaker Design App also works with other 3D printers; it is available now and free to download for iOS and Android devices. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Mattel Unveils $300 3D Printer
In case you’re ever in the position of wanting to get back at a lawyer, here’s some news from Florida: don’t get your revenge by posting a slanderous Yelp review, or you’ll be in the hole for $350, 000. Read more…
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Libelling a Lawyer in Yelp Reviews Turns Out to be a Bad Idea
(credit: Aurich Lawson) The Stuxnet computer worm that destroyed centrifuges inside Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site was only one element of a much larger US-prepared cyberattack plan that targeted Iran’s air defenses, communications systems, and key parts of its power grid, according to articles published Tuesday. The contingency plan, known internally as Nitro Zeus, was intended to be carried out in the event that diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear development program failed and the US was pulled into a war between Iran and Israel, according to an article published by The New York Times . At its height, planning for the program involved thousands of US military and intelligence personnel, tens of millions of dollars in expenditures, and the placing of electronic implants in Iranian computer networks to ensure the operation targeting critical infrastructure would work at a moment’s notice. Another piece of the plan involved using a computer worm to destroy computer systems at the Fordo nuclear enrichment site, which was built deep inside a mountain near the Iranian city of Qom. It had long been considered one of the hardest Iranian targets to disable and was intended to be a follow-up to “Olympic Games,” the code name of the plan Stuxnet fell under. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Massive US-planned cyberattack against Iran went well beyond Stuxnet