MrSeb writes with this excerpt, linking to several pretty graphs: “For more than 30 years, the realm of computing has been intrinsically linked to the humble hard drive. It has been a complex and sometimes torturous relationship, but there’s no denying the huge role that hard drives have played in the growth and popularization of PCs, and more recently in the rapid expansion of online and cloud storage. Given our exceedingly heavy reliance on hard drives, it’s very, very weird that one piece of vital information still eludes us: How long does a hard drive last? According to some new data, gathered from 25, 000 hard drives that have been spinning for four years, it turns out that hard drives actually have a surprisingly low failure rate.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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25,000-Drive Study Gives Insight On How Long Hard Drives Actually Last
An anonymous reader writes with news that the Obama administration has appointed Jeffrey Zients to lead the effort to revamp Healthcare.gov after its trouble rollout earlier this month. Zients said, “By the end of November, healthcare.gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users.” Obama created a position for Zients within the government in 2009, when he was made the OMB’s Chief Performance Officer. The purpose of his position was to analyze and streamline the government’s budget concerns. “Healthcare.gov covers people in the 36 states that declined to run their own health-insurance exchanges. About 700, 000 applications have been begun nationwide, and half of them have come in through the website. The White House aims to have 7M uninsured Americans covered by the scheme by the end of March.” Zients’s appointment came after a contentious House Committee hearing about the healthcare website, in which many were blamed and few took responsibility. The government also said that contractor Quality Software Services Inc., a subsidiary of UnitedHealth group, would “oversee the entire operation” of Healthcare.gov. QSSI has already done work on the website, building the pipeline that transfers data between the insurance exchanges and the federal agencies. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Taco Cowboy writes “Today, a Russian Soyuz rocket shot the first 4 of 12 satellites in a new constellation that are designed to provide affordable, high-speed Internet to people in nearly 180 ‘under-connected’ countries. The orbiters, part of a project dubbed O3b for the ‘other 3 billion’ people with restricted Internet access, were built by the Franco-Italian company Thales Alenia Space. They will orbit at 8,062 km and will weigh only 650 kilogrammes (1,400 pounds) each. ‘There are already geostationary satellites providing this type of services, but at a prohibitive cost for many end-users. Existing satellites generally obit at an altitude of some 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) above Earth, weigh in at a hefty four to six tonnes each, and take much longer to bounce a signal back to Earth—about 500 milliseconds to be exact, according to an O3b document. “It is such a long delay that people speaking over a satellite link will shorten conversations, interactive web has an extremely poor experience and many web-based software programmes just won’t function.” Crucially, they will communicate with Earth four times faster, said the company, and six would be enough to assure permanent coverage. “O3b’s prices will be 30 — 50 percent less than traditional satellite services,” said the document. … Launch company Arianespace, which will put the satellites in orbit, said the O3b constellation will combine “the global reach of satellite coverage with the speed of a fiber-optic network.” … The next four satellites will be launched within weeks, according to Arianespace, and a final four “backup” orbiters early next year.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Windows: Reboot Restore RX is a free utility that makes restore points and session saves every time you reboot your computer, so if you run into problems, you can restore your system settings to the last time you rebooted and get up and running again quickly. Read more… 
wiredmikey writes “An official investigation into a major cyber attack on South Korean banks and broadcasters last month has determined that North Korea’s military intelligence agency was responsible. An investigation into access records and the malware used in the attack pointed to the North’s military Reconnaissance General Bureau as the source, the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) said on Wednesday. To spread the malware, the attackers went through 49 different places in 10 countries including South Korea, the investigation found. The attacks used malware that can wipe the contents of a computer’s hard disk (including Linux machines) and damaged 48,700 machines including PCs, ATMs, and servers.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
