Author: kenmay

Oracle deprecates the Java browser plugin, prepares for its demise

The much-maligned Java browser plugin, source of so many security flaws over the years, is to be killed off by Oracle. It will not be mourned. Oracle, which acquired Java as part of its 2010 purchase of Sun Microsystems, has announced that the plugin will be deprecated in the next release of Java, version 9, which is currently available as an early access beta. A future release will remove it entirely. Of course, Oracle’s move is arguably a day late and a dollar short. Chrome started deprecating browser plugins last April , with Firefox announcing similar plans in October . Microsoft’s new Edge browser also lacks any support for plugins. Taken together, it doesn’t really matter much what Oracle does: even if the company continued developing and supporting its plugin, the browser vendors themselves were making it an irrelevance. Only Internet Explorer 11, itself a legacy browser that’s receiving only security fixes, is set to offer any continued plugin support. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Oracle deprecates the Java browser plugin, prepares for its demise

HTC Vive Pre impressions: A great VR system has only gotten better

Sam Machkovech Say hello to the HTC Vive Pre—the near-final version of the VR system. The headset comes complete with two tracking wands and two laser-tracking stations. 12 more images in gallery SEATTLE, Washington—Valve and HTC took the wraps off of their latest, near-final version of the Vive virtual reality system at this month’s CES, but we barely got a chance to play with the refreshed headset. That changed on Wednesday thanks to an event hosted in Valve’s hometown of Seattle, where the company offered Ars 12 lengthy demos of upcoming games and apps. Our detailed impressions of those dozen demos are forthcoming, but in the meantime, we have good news. The pre-release Vive Pre hardware may not be phenomenally better than the original Vive dev kit, but every change has made an already-impressive VR system feel that much more complete, comfortable, and worth salivating over. Like the original HTC Vive dev kit , the Vive Pre asks users to wear a VR headset whilst walking around a pre-defined, real-life space and holding motion-tracked wands in each hand. These wands’ main buttons are still a gun-like trigger and a thumb-accessible, clickable trackpad; in addition, the handle has a button on each side of the controller’s grip, and those are now positioned for easier hand access. New menu buttons have been placed above and below the trackpad, as well. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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HTC Vive Pre impressions: A great VR system has only gotten better

City cops in Disneyland’s backyard have had “stingray on steroids” for years

(credit: NoHoDamon ) New documents released ( PDF ) on Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of California show that for the last several years, police in the city of Anaheim, California—home of Disneyland—have been using an invasive cell phone surveillance device, known as a “dirtbox.” The ACLU obtained the 464 pages of documents recently after it sued the Anaheim Police Department (APD) last year over the agency’s failure to respond to its public records request concerning such surveillance-related documents. The DRTBox has been described by one Chicago privacy activist as a “stingray on steroids,” referring to the controversial cell-site simulator that spoofs cell towers to locate phones and intercept calls and texts . Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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City cops in Disneyland’s backyard have had “stingray on steroids” for years

Large Hadron Collider crew has to pull 9,000 old cables

Even particle physics researchers have messes to clean up now and then. CERN has revealed to Motherboard that it’s pulling 9, 000 obsolete cables in three of the Large Hadron Collider’s injectors in order to make way for newer cabling. That’s a lot of work by itself (many of the cables are dozens of feet long), but it’s made all the more daunting by the consequences of yanking the wrong line. Since the cables are largely for control and safety systems, one wrong move could prevent the entire particle accelerator from working — try explaining that slip-up to your supervisors. The crew has already disconnected 2, 700 of the cables, and expects to remove all of them in 2017. CERN shouldn’t have any problems with the LHC shutdown scheduled for 2019, in other words. And hopefully, this won’t be necessary again. The gigantic amount of clutter stems from a “not-so-good habit” of leaving old cables around, which suggests that engineers will be much smarter about cleaning up in the future. [Image credit: CERN] Source: Motherboard

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Large Hadron Collider crew has to pull 9,000 old cables

VMware Fusion, Workstation team culled in company restructure

(credit: Ferran Rodenas ) Members of VMware’s “Hosted UI” team—the developers responsible for the virtualization company’s Workstation and Fusion desktop products—were apparently laid off on Monday as part of a restructuring of the company that was announced yesterday. The developers were just a part of a larger layoff as the company moved to cut costs and brought aboard a new chief financial officer. “VMware… announced a restructuring and realignment of approximately 800 roles,” a company spokesperson said in a press release Monday, “and plans to take a GAAP charge estimated to be between $55 million and $65 million related to this action over the course of the first half of 2016. The company plans to reinvest the associated savings in field, technical and support resources associated with growth products.” In a blog post ,  Christian Hammond , a former member of the Hosted UI team, reported the layoff, along with concerns about the future of the “award winning and profitable” desktop virtualization products. “VMware lost a lot of amazing people, and will be feeling that for some time to come, once they realize what they’ve done,” Hammond wrote. “It’s a shame. As for our team, well, I think everyone will do just fine. Some of the best companies in the Silicon Valley are full of ex-VMware members, many former Hosted UI, who would probably welcome the chance to work with their teammates again.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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VMware Fusion, Workstation team culled in company restructure

How A Tesla With Autopilot Forced Us To Take The Road Trip Of The Past

The weird thing about the road trip of the future is that it’s much more like the road trips we used to take in our past than anything else. My coworkers and I just did 1400-odd miles in an electric Tesla Model S that could also drive itself. It wasn’t just the trip of the future. It was the way things used to be, too. Read more…

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How A Tesla With Autopilot Forced Us To Take The Road Trip Of The Past

Verizon FiOS default speed now 50Mbps—double FCC’s broadband definition

(credit: bluepoint951 ) Despite claiming that the government’s definition of “broadband” shouldn’t have been increased to 25Mbps,Verizon is now phasing out its 25Mbps fiber service and making 50Mbps the default minimum. A year ago, the Federal Communications Commission voted to boost the definition of broadband from 4Mbps downstream/1Mbps upstream to 25Mbps/3Mbps. The definition affects policy decisions and the FCC’s annual assessment of whether broadband is being deployed to all Americans quickly enough. Verizon unsuccessfully lobbied the FCC to keep the old definition, saying that “a higher benchmark would serve no purpose in accurately assessing the availability of broadband.” Verizon still offers speeds as low as 512kbps downloads and 384kbps uploads  in areas where it hasn’t upgraded copper DSL lines to fiber. Verizon DSL goes up to 15Mbps/1Mbps, if you’re close enough to Verizon Internet facilities. Mayors in 14 East Coast cities including New York City  recently criticized Verizon for leaving many customers with copper only. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon FiOS default speed now 50Mbps—double FCC’s broadband definition

Themepark in an ancient, cavernous Transylvanian salt-mine

Transylvania’s Salina Turda themepark is housed in an ancient salt mine with millennia of history. Visitors use its vertical shafts to access vast underground salt caverns and lakes dotted with a concert hall, mini-golf courses, bowling alleys, and rowboats. (more…)

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Themepark in an ancient, cavernous Transylvanian salt-mine

DeLorean Motor Company will start building new DMC-12s

Ian Weddell @ Flickr The DMC-12 was styled by the legendary Giogretto Giugiaro. The gullwing doors suggested exotic performance that the underpowered car was never able to provide. 5 more images in gallery The DeLorean DMC-12 might have been destined to pass quietly into obscurity, that is until its starring role in 1985’s Back to the Future . A little more than 8,500 DMC-12s left DeLorean’s factory in Northern Ireland between 1981 and 1983, until it all fell apart following founder John DeLorean’s arrest by the FBI on charges of drug trafficking. But Doc Brown souped up his DeLorean with a flux capacitor, imbuing the DMC-12 with iconic status in the nerd canon. Soon, you’ll be able to buy a brand new one—production is about to resume on this side of the Atlantic, in Humble, Texas. The Texas-based DeLorean Motor Company —not directly related to its defunct predecessor—has been supplying parts and rebuilding or restoring DMC-12s for many years. Now it is able to build new cars as well, following changes to the laws governing low-volume auto manufacturers. The 2015 Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015 rolled up a lot of different transportation-related bills, including one that now allows companies to build replica vehicles without having to satisfy modern safety regulations, as long as fewer than 325 are made each year. Replica cars still have to meet current Environmental Protection Agency standards for emissions, so the DMC-12’s old Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6 is out. DMC’s CEO told Houston’s KPRC2 that the final price will depend upon whichever engine replaces the old unit, although new cars should still cost less than $100,000 (£70,000) There could even be an electric variant , although little has been heard about this version for some time now. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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DeLorean Motor Company will start building new DMC-12s