Western Digital Black2 drive packs both solid-state and spinning storage

Performance-minded PC users frequently want both a fast solid-state drive for crucial apps and a regular hard disk for everything else, but that’s not always feasible in the tight space of a laptop. Western Digital is making that two-drive option a practical reality through its new Black2 . The design puts both a 120GB SSD and a 1TB spinning disk into a single 2.5-inch SATA enclosure, offering more speed and capacity than you’d find in a typical hybrid drive . It’s potentially an ideal blend for gamers and small form factor PC builders, although they’ll pay for the privilege — WD is shipping the Black2 today for $300, or roughly as much as the two drives by themselves. [Thanks, Metayoshi] Filed under: Laptops , Storage Comments Source: Western Digital

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Western Digital Black2 drive packs both solid-state and spinning storage

Blue Screen of Insomnia.

Blue Screen of Insomnia. Designers Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff analyzed screen colors in tons of science fiction movies, and concluded that future computer screens would be tinted blue. Which is bad news, since our eyes are hypersensitive to blue light, and it keeps us from sleeping . Read more…        

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Blue Screen of Insomnia.

OneNote for Windows 8.1 now uses optical character recognition to search scanned images

It’s been about four months since the OneNote app for Windows received a significant update. Today, though, Microsoft is adding several key features, with the biggest being the ability to scan images and then search them using keywords. This new Camera Scan feature, as it’s called, automatically crops and rotates photos, removing shadows and sharpening the image where necessary. Then, it uses optical character recognition (OCR) to search for words in scanned images, making it easy to find those meetings notes you took the other day. Additionally, the update now allows you to save things using the Share Charm. And if you want a shot of the entire screen (and not just a specific item, like a recipe), you can use the Share Charm in a Windows app and then select” screenshot” from the Share Charm drop-down. (In desktop mode, screenshots are already the standard option.) Finally, the app now has both a full-screen view and a ” Recent Notes” option, which shows all your notes in the order you last used them, regardless of whether you were viewing them on Windows, iOS or Android. These are accompanied by short previews, making it easier to zero in on what you want. And that about sums it up — to get the latest version, hit up the download link below. Filed under: Software , Microsoft Comments Source: Windows Store , Microsoft

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OneNote for Windows 8.1 now uses optical character recognition to search scanned images

Here Is Your Self-Driving Car! But Do You Want It?

So long, jetpacks! Our self-driving car has arrived. Burkhard Bilger has a rundown of the fascinating build-up to the self-driving car and its future in the New Yorker — and in this case the future is now. Now, the question is, are we really ready to start using it? Read more…        

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Here Is Your Self-Driving Car! But Do You Want It?

Hanging Gardens of Bablyon "found" … at Nineveh

Oxford University academic Dr Stephanie Dalley believes she has identified the precise location of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Bablyon : near Nineveh, hundreds of miles north. Dalley’s hypothesis has the gardens built not by Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, but by Assyrians under Sennacherib about 2,700 years ago. Nineveh’s ruins now lie on the city limits of modern-day Mosul.        

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Hanging Gardens of Bablyon "found" … at Nineveh

Move Over Graphene: The Wonder Conductor of the Future May Be Stanene

When it comes to super materials, graphene seems to get all the attention . But a team of researchers has developed Stanene: a single layer of tin atoms that could just be the world’s first material to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency at the temperatures that computers work at. Read more…        

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Move Over Graphene: The Wonder Conductor of the Future May Be Stanene

Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto

wabrandsma writes “Two Israeli computer scientists say they may have uncovered a puzzling financial link between Ross William Ulbricht, the recently arrested operator of the Internet black market known as the Silk Road, and the secretive inventor of bitcoin, the anonymous online currency, used to make Silk Road purchases.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto

Route-Injection Attacks Detouring Internet Traffic

msm1267 writes “Attackers are using route injection attacks against BGP-speaking routers to insert additional hops in the traffic stream, redirecting traffic to third-party locations where it can be inspected before it’s sent to its destination. Internet intelligence company Renesys has detected close to 1, 500 IP address blocks that have been hijacked on more than 60 days this year, a disturbing trend that indicates attackers could finally have an increased interest in weaknesses inherent in core Internet infrastructure.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Route-Injection Attacks Detouring Internet Traffic

NYT: Healthcare.gov Project Chaos Due Partly To Unorthodox Database Choice

First time accepted submitter conoviator writes “The NY Times has just published a piece providing more background on the healthcare.gov software project. One interesting aspect: ‘Another sore point was the Medicare agency’s decision to use database software, from a company called MarkLogic, that managed the data differently from systems by companies like IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. CGI officials argued that it would slow work because it was too unfamiliar. Government officials disagreed, and its configuration remains a serious problem.'” The story does not say that MarkLogic’s software is bad in itself, only that the choice meant increased complexity on the project. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NYT: Healthcare.gov Project Chaos Due Partly To Unorthodox Database Choice