Category: reader

Ex-Sheriff Invents a Bullet-Dampening Device

In science fiction, people can set their laser guns to “Stun.” With a flick of a switch, Captain Kirk can opt to fire nonlethal rounds. Real-life police have no such option. While beanbag guns exist, it’s hardly practical for cops to carry both of them around, and they cannot be expected to know which one they’ll need at any given moment. As a result, when being approached by a threat who will not comply, their only option is to fire a lethal bullet at the target. An unnamed, retired sheriff found this problem vexing, and “did not like the fact that people were being shot when the officers do have time (to consider options) but they had no other option than lethal force, ” Christian Ellis told CNN. Ellis is the CEO of a company called Alternative Ballistics, and they have spent nearly a decade bringing that sheriff’s subsequent invention to market. What the sheriff came up with is a small product, called “The Alternative, ” that can be quickly snapped onto the end of a pistol. When he then pulls the trigger, the bullet slams into a larger projectile on the end of the barrel, with plenty ’nuff force to carry both of them to the target. But the larger secondary projectile slows the speed and spreads the force over a greater area—in other words, it does not penetrate. “It’s gonna feel like you had a professional baseball player hit you in the chest with a hammer, so it is going to hurt, ” Ellis explains. But the thinking is that you will survive, bullethole-free. Here’s how it works: Obviously testing will be needed, as there are many hurdles to clear: Realistically speaking, can an officer break this out in time? Is there room for yet another item to hang from an officer’s belt? How will the training be handled? So while we don’t say this is the magic bullet, if you’ll pardon the pun, to solve unnecessary shooting deaths, we do appreciate the fact that at least someone, somewhere is trying to apply design to the problem. Because we’re damn sure not able to work it out between us as humans.

Read More:
Ex-Sheriff Invents a Bullet-Dampening Device

AMD Unveils Carrizo APU With Excavator Core Architecture

MojoKid writes: AMD just unveiled new details about their upcoming Carrizo APU architecture. The company is claiming the processor, which is still built on Global Foundries’ 28nm 28SHP node like its predecessor, will nonetheless deliver big advances in both performance and efficiency. When it was first announced, AMD detailed support for next generation Radeon Graphics (DX12, Mantle, and Dual Graphics support), H.265 decoding, full HSA 1.0 support, and ARM Trustzone compatibility. But perhaps one of the biggest advantages of Carrizo is the fact that the APU and Southbridge are now incorporated into the same die; not just two separates dies built into and MCM package. This not only improves performance, but also allows the Southbridge to take advantage of the 28SHP process rather than older, more power-hungry 45nm or 65nm process nodes. In addition, the Excavator cores used in Carrizo have switched from a High Performance Library (HPL) to a High Density Library (HDL) design. This allows for a reduction in the die area taken up by the processing cores (23 percent, according to AMD). This allows Carrizo to pack in 29 percent more transistors (3.1 billion versus 2.3 billion in Kaveri) in a die size that is only marginally larger (250mm2 for Carrizo versus 245mm2 for Kaveri). When all is said and done, AMD is claiming a 5 percent IPC boost for Carrizo and a 40 percent overall reduction in power usage. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View article:
AMD Unveils Carrizo APU With Excavator Core Architecture

What you need to know about HTTP/2

Look at the address bar in your browser. See those letters at the front, “HTTP”? That stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the mechanism a browser uses to request information from a server and display webpages on your screen. A new version of the reliable and ubiquitous HTTP protocol was recently published as a draft by the organization in charge of creating standards for the internet, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). This means that the old version, HTTP/1.1, in use since 1999, will eventually be replaced by a new one, dubbed HTTP/2. This update improves the way browsers and servers communicate, allowing for faster transfer of information while reducing the amount of raw horsepower needed. Why is this important? HTTP/1.1 has been in use since 1999, and while it’s performed admirably over the years, it’s starting to show its age. Websites nowadays include many different components besides your standard HTML, like design elements (CSS), client-side scripting (JavaScript), images, video and Flash animations. To transfer that information, the browser has to create several connections, and each one has details about the source, destination and contents of the communication package or protocol. That puts a huge load on both the server delivering the content and your browser. All those connections and the processing power they require can lead to slowdowns as more and more elements are added to a site. And if we know nothing else, it’s that people can be quite impatient. We’ve come to expect blazing-fast internet and even the slightest of delays can lead to hair pulling and mumbled swears. For companies, a slow website can translate directly into lost money, especially for online services where long load times mean a bad user experience. People have been searching for ways to speed up the internet since the days when dial-up and AIM were ubiquitous. One of the more common techniques is caching, where certain information is stored locally as opposed to transferring everything anew each time it’s requested. But others have resorted to tricks like lowering the resolution of images and videos; still others have spent countless hours tweaking and optimizing code to cut just milliseconds from their load times. These options are useful, but are really just Band-Aids. So Google decided to dramatically overhaul HTTP/1.1 and create SPDY; the results have been impressive. In general, communication between a server and a browser using SPDY is much faster, even when encryption is applied. At a minimum, the transfer speed with SPDY can improve by about 10 percent and, in some cases, can reach numbers closer to 40 percent. Such has been the success of SPDY that in 2012 the group of Google engineers behind the project decided to create a new protocol based on the technology, and that started the story that leads us to the current HTTP/2 draft. What is a protocol? You can think of a protocol as a collection of rules that govern how information is transferred from one computer to another. Each protocol is a little different, but usually they include a header, payload and footer. The header contains the source and destination addresses and some information about the payload (type of data, size of data, etc.). The payload contains the actual information, and the footer holds some form of error detection. Some protocols also support a feature called “encapsulation, ” which lets them include other protocols inside of their payload section. You can think of it like sending a letter using snail mail. Our protocol in this case would be defined by the USPS. The letter would require a destination address in a specific format, a return address and postage. The “payload” would be the letter itself and the error detection is the seal on the envelope. If it arrives ripped and without a letter, you’d know there was a problem. Why is HTTP/2 better? In a few words: HTTP/2 loads webpages much faster, saving everyone time that otherwise would go to waste. It’s as simple as that. The example below, published by the folks over at HttpWatch , shows transfer speeds increasing more than 20 percent, and this is just one test with web servers not yet fully optimized (the technology will need some time to mature for that). In fact, improvements of around 30 percent seem to be common. Example of HTTP page load speed (above) against HTTP/2 (below) HTTP/2 improves speed mainly by creating one constant connection between the browser and the server, as opposed to a connection every time a piece of information is needed. This significantly reduces the amount of data being transferred. Plus, it transfers data in binary, a computer’s native language, rather than in text. This means your computer doesn’t have to waste time translating information into a format it understands. Other features of HTTP/2 include “multiplexing” (sending and receiving multiple messages at the same time), the use of prioritization (more important data is transferred first), compression (squeezing information into smaller chunks) and “server push, ” where a server makes an educated guess about what your next request will be and sends that data ahead of time. So when will we get to enjoy the benefits of HTTP/2? There’s no real start date for the use of HTTP/2, and many people may already be using it unknowingly. The draft submitted on February 11th will expire in six months (August 15th, to be precise). Before expiring, it has to be confirmed and become a finished document, called an “RFC, ” or a new draft with changes has to be published. As a side note, we should mention that the term “RFC” comes from “Request For Comments, ” but it’s really a name for a finalized document used by the IETF. Also, an RFC is not a requirement, but more of a suggestion of how things should be designed. (Confusing right?) However, for a protocol to work properly, everyone has to follow the same rules. The HTTP/2 technology is already baked into many web servers and browsers, even if it’s still just a draft. For example, Microsoft supports HTTP/2 on Internet Explorer under the Windows 10 Technical Preview ; Chrome also supports it (while it’s disabled by default, you can easily enable it ); and Mozilla has had it available since Firefox Beta 36. If we talk about web servers, you should know that IIS (the Windows web server) already supports HTTP/2 under Windows 10 and it’s expected that Apache and Nginx will offer support very soon (SPDY is already supported through extensions). This means that sooner, rather than later, we will all be using HTTP/2. And chances are you won’t even realize it when the switch is made unless you’re in the habit of timing load times for your favorite sites. Plus, you’ll still just see “http” or “https” in the address bar, so, life will continue as usual, but a bit faster. [Image credits: Shutterstock (Server rack); HttpWatch (Benchmark charts)] Comments Source: IETF

See original article:
What you need to know about HTTP/2

Firefox 36 Arrives With Full HTTP/2 Support, New Design For Android Tablets

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 36 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Additions to the browser include some security improvements, better HTML 5 support, and a new tablet user interface on Android. The biggest news for the browser is undoubtedly HTTP/2 support, the roadmap for which Mozilla outlined just last week. Mozilla plans to keep various draft levels of HTTP/2, already in Firefox, for a few versions. These will be removed “sometime in the near future.” The full changelog is here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Excerpt from:
Firefox 36 Arrives With Full HTTP/2 Support, New Design For Android Tablets

Electron microscopes stop thieves from covering their tracks

Ask the police and they’ll tell you that serial numbers seldom help catch thieves — dedicated crooks are usually smart enough to file off those digits so that stolen items can’t be linked to a crime. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology might have just found a way to recover those numbers and stop criminals in their tracks, however. Their new technique uses electron microscopes to spot damaged crystal patterns in steel, revealing characters even when they’ve been polished into oblivion. Current recovery approaches (like acid etching or electrolytic polishing) only sometimes work, and frequently provide faint clues at best — the microscope produces clear evidence that you could use to convict someone in court. It’s going to be a while before the cops are using this method. Right now, it takes three whole days to identify eight numbers. That time could shrink to an hour through optimization, though. If that happens, gun runners and burglars may have a considerably harder time escaping the long arm of the law. Unless nogoodniks get particularly creative, you’d have little trouble tracing many weapons and fenced items back to their sources. [Image credit: White/NIST] Filed under: Science Comments Via: Slashdot , Gizmodo Source: NIST

Read this article:
Electron microscopes stop thieves from covering their tracks

Chrome warns users of malware-infected websites before connecting to them

Google’s already making sure you don’t download malware, and now it’s expanding its Safe Browsing initiative. In addition to preventative warnings prior to downloading, the Chrome browser will now throw a red flag (pictured after the break) before visiting a site that may encourage you to install any malicious software. Search listings are getting marks for sites that might contain nefarious programs as well, and Mountain View says that it’s actively disabling Google Ads that “lead to sites with unwanted software.” The search giant is urging site owners to install its Webmaster Tools to help keep on top of any possible issues with a site pushing bad software to visitors, and says this’ll aid with the resolution process should that happen. Again, it’s Google working to keep its “don’t be evil” reputation in line and making the internet a safer place for everyone. After all, even the most web savvy among us have probably downloaded malware before at some point. [Image credit: Associated Press] Filed under: Internet , Google Comments Source: Inside Search blog

Read the original:
Chrome warns users of malware-infected websites before connecting to them