Germany just took fusion power one big, important step forward. The country’s Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics has just switched on Wendelstein 7-X , the first large fusion reactor based on a twisty stellarator design. It’s only producing hydrogen plasma at the moment and won’t actually generate energy, but power isn’t really the point. Instead, it’ll serve as proof that stellarators could provide energy while operating continuously, unlike current (tokamak-based) fusion reactors that operate in short pulses. They should be safer, too. The inaugural test phase will run through mid-March, after which point it’ll get an upgrade to let it run hotter and longer. Eventually, it should discharge for up to 30 minutes at a time, and muster a heating power of 20 megawatts. The machine comes at a high price in more ways than one. It took roughly 19 years to design and build Wendelstein 7-X at a staggering cost of €1.2 billion, or about $1.3 billion. That’s a lot of effort for a testbed device. However, it could pay off if it leads to a much more powerful (not to mention less dangerous ) alternative to nuclear fission energy. Via: Motherboard Source: Max Planck Institute
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Twisty fusion reactor goes online after 19 years of work
Fast Company highlights the cheap-for-the-price Phoenix exoskeleton, created by University of California Berkeley professor (and Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory director) Homayoon Kazerooni and a team of his former grad students at SuitX, a company Kazerooni founded in 2013. Set to sell for $40, 000 when it goes on sale next month, the Phoenix sounds expensive — except compared to the alternatives. For paraplegic patients, there are a handful of other powered exoskeletons, but they cost much more, and are engineered for more than the modest goals of the Phoenix, which allows only one thing: slow walking on level ground. That limited objective means that the rig is light (27 pounds), and relatively unobtrusive. Kazerooni says that he’d like the price to go down much further, too, noting that all the technology in a modern motorcyle can be had for the quarter of the price. A slice: [The] only driving motors in Phoenix are at the hip joints. When the user hits a forward button on their crutches, their left hip swings forward. At this moment, the onboard computer signals the knee to become loose, flex, and clear the ground. As the foot hits, the knee joint stiffens again to support the leg. This computer-choreographed process repeats for the right leg. As it happens, this hinged knee joint has another benefit. If the wearer hits something midstep, like a rock or a curb, a powered knee would blindly drive the leg forward anyway, likely leading to a fall. The hinge naturally absorbs such resistance and allows the wearer a chance to compensate. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes: Check Point researchers have discovered a severe vulnerability in eBay’s online sales platform, which allows criminals to distribute malware and do phishing campaigns. This vulnerability allows attackers to bypass eBay’s code validation and control the vulnerable code remotely, to execute malicious Javascript code on targeted eBay users. Read more of this story at Slashdot.