Slashdot reader Taco Cowboy brings a new report about Russian robot IR77, which has escaped from its research lab again… The story goes that an engineer working at Promobot Laboratories, in the Russian city of Perm, had left a gate open. Out trundled Promobot, traveling some 150 feet into the city before running out of juice. There it sat, batteries mostly dead, in the middle of a Perm street for 40 minutes, slowing cars to a halt and puzzling traffic cops A researcher at Promobot’s facility in Russia said that the runaway robot was designed to interact with human beings, learn from experiences, and remember places and the faces of everyone it meets. Other versions of the Promobot have been docile, but this one just can’t seem to fall in line, even after the researchers reprogrammed it twice. Despite several rewrites of Promobot’s artificial intelligence, the robot continued to move toward exits. “We have changed the AI system twice, ” Kivokurtsev said. “So now I think we might have to dismantle it”. Fans of the robot are pushing for a reprieve, according to an article titled ‘Don’t kill it!’: Runaway robot IR77 could be de-activated because of ‘love for freedom’ Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Artificially Intelligent Russian Robot Escapes…Again
MojoKid writes: Seagate has just unveiled what it is calling “the world’s fastest SSD, ” and the performance differential between it and the next closest competitive offering is significant, if their claims are true. The SSD, which Seagate today announced is in “production-ready” form employs the NVMe protocol to help it achieve breakneck speeds. So just how fast is it? Seagate says that the new SSD is capable of 10GB/sec of throughput when used in 16-lane PCIe slots. Seagate notes that this is 4GB/sec faster than the next-fastest competing SSD solution. The company is also working on a second, lower-performing variant that works in 8-lane PCIe slots and has a throughput of 6.7GB/sec. Seagate sees the second model as a more cost-effect SSD for businesses that want a high performing SSD, but want to keep costs and power consumption under control. Seagate isn’t ready yet to discuss pricing for its blazing fast SSDs, and oddly haven’t disclosed a model name either, but it does say that general availability for its customers will open up during the summer. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes: Security researchers found around 8, 000 Aethra routers (with no admin passwords) as part of a botnet that attacked WordPress sites, trying to brute-force admin accounts. Most routers were deployed in enterprise networks in Italy. Each device could have be used to launch DDoS attacks with a capability between 1 to 10 Gbps for each device, based on the company’s bandwidth. Things could be worse, though: Additional investigation also revealed that some of the routers were also susceptible to various reflected XSS and CSRF attacks that would also allow attackers to take control of the device, even if using different login credentials. Using Shodan, a search engine for locating Internet-connected devices, researchers found over 12, 000 of Aethra routers around the world, 10, 866 in Italy alone, and over 8, 000 of these devices were of the model detected in the initial brute-force attack (Aethra Telecommunications PBX series). At that time, 70% of these Aethra routers were still using their default login credentials Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Zothecula writes: Of the many new exoplanets discovered over the past two decades, all have been identified as established, older planets – none have been acknowledged as newly-forming protoplanets. Now scientists working at the Keck observatory have spied just such a planet in the constellation of Taurus, some 450 light-years from Earth (abstract), that is only just beginning its life, collecting matter and spinning into a brand new world. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Patrick O’Neill writes: At a time when privacy and encryption on mobile devices are the subject of political storm, last month’s iOS 9 release means that Apple devices will finally get what Android has had for years: System-wide Tor anonymity. A handful of security experts recently set to work on projects to bring more powerful anonymity to iOS. “There are a bunch of pieces in the works, ” Tor developer and Guardian Project leader Nathan Freitas told the Daily Dot. “We just started to work on it and think about it. Tor knows we can’t ignore all the iOS 9 users in the world.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
sciencehabit writes: If you’re a caterpillar, you do not want to meet a parasitic wasp. The winged insect will inject you full of eggs, which will grow inside your body, develop into larvae, and hatch from your corpse. But a new study reveals that wasps have given caterpillars something beneficial during these attacks as well: pieces of viral DNA that become part of the caterpillar genome, protecting them against an entirely different lethal virus. In essence, the wasps have turned caterpillars into genetically modified organisms. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Lucas123 writes: Both Micron and Toshiba are producing NAND flash memory based on 15 and 16 nanometer process technology, which reduces die area over a 16GB MLC chip by 28% compared with previous die technology. Additionally, Micron announced its upcoming consumer USB flash drives and internal SSDs will also use triple-level cell NAND flash (a technology expected to soon dominate the market) storing three bits instead of two for the first time and further reducing production cost. The advancement in NAND flash density has been driving SSD pricing down dramatically over the past few years. In fact, over the last year, the average price for 128GB and 256GB SSDs have dropped to $50 and $90, respectively, for system manufacturers, according to DRAMeXchange. And prices for consumers have dropped to an average of $91.55 for a 128GB SSD and $164.34 for a 256GB SSD. Read more of this story at Slashdot.