Inside Ford’s New Silicon Valley Lab

An anonymous reader writes Engadget takes a look at Ford’s new Research and Innovation Center located in Palo Alto. The company hopes to use the new facility to speed the development of projects such as autonomous cars and better natural voice recognition. From the article: “This isn’t Ford’s first dance with the Valley — it actually started its courtship several years ago when it opened its inaugural Silicon Valley office in 2012. The new center, however, is a much bigger effort, with someone new at the helm. That person is Dragos Maciuca, a former Apple engineer with significant experience in consumer electronics, semiconductors, aerospace and automotive tech. Ford also hopes to build a team of 125 professionals under Maciuca, which would make the company one of the largest dedicated automotive research teams in the Valley.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Inside Ford’s New Silicon Valley Lab

Adobe Patches Nine Vulnerabilities In Flash

jones_supa writes Adobe has patched nine vulnerabilities in Flash Player — four of which are considered “critical” — in order to protect against malicious attackers who could exploit the bugs to take control of an affected system. Adobe acknowledged security researchers from Google, McAfee, HP, and Verisign. Flash’s security bulletin contains more information on the vulnerabilities. The issues are fixed in mainline Flash Player 16.0.0.257 (incl. Google Chrome Linux version), extended support release 13.0.0.260, and Linux standalone plugin 11.2.202.429. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Adobe Patches Nine Vulnerabilities In Flash

Bitcoin Gets Its First TV Ads

MRothenberg writes Bitcoin’s not just for libertarians and drug dealers any more! Electronic payment service BitPay this week launched a campaign aimed at making Bitcoin transactions more appealing to mainstream business owners — the first time Bitcoin has been featured in a TV spot. Conceived by Felton Interactive Group, the two new ads promote Bitcoin and BitPay as a secure alternative to traditional credit-card transactions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bitcoin Gets Its First TV Ads

Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site

schwit1 (797399) writes “Suspiciously high radiation levels around the Austrian town of St. Georgen an der Gusen had long fueled theories that there was a buried bunker nearby where Nazis had tested nuclear weapons during WWII. Those suspicions came one step closer to being confirmed last week after the opening of a 75-acre underground complex was dug out from below the earth and granite used to seal off the entrance, the Times of Israel reports. The excavation team was led by Austrian filmmaker Andreas Sulzer, who says the site was “likely the biggest secret weapons production facility of the Third Reich” — a facility that probably relied on forced labor from the nearby Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp and may have even been the testing location for a nuclear bomb, the Daily Mirror reports. The weapons facility was believed to have been manned by SS General Hans Kammler and situated near the B8 Bergkristall factory, where the first working jet-powered fighter was created, International Business Times reports; Sulzer first got wind of the site after seeing references to it in an Austrian physicist’s diary. The Washington Post cautions that while “the full scope of what occurred inside those reported chambers in the Austrian town of St. Georgen remains unclear and Sulzer’s conclusions are speculative, some analysts are already trumpeting the findings. … The reported findings, if corroborated by further inquiry, could add fresh fodder to an ongoing debate over the Third Reich’s ultimately failed attempt to secure an atomic weapon.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site

Multi-Process Comes To Firefox Nightly, 64-bit Firefox For Windows ‘Soon’

An anonymous reader writes with word that the Mozilla project has made two announcements that should make hardcore Firefox users very happy. The first is that multi-process support is landing in Firefox Nightly, and the second is that 64-bit Firefox is finally coming to Windows. The features are a big deal on their own, but together they show Mozilla’s commitment to the desktop version of Firefox as they both improve performance and security. The news is part of a slew of unveilings from the company on the browser’s 10th anniversary — including new Firefox features and the debut of Firefox Developer Edition. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Multi-Process Comes To Firefox Nightly, 64-bit Firefox For Windows ‘Soon’

Codecademy’s ReSkillUSA: Gestation Period For New Developers Is 3 Months

theodp writes: TechCrunch reports that Codecademy has teamed up with online and offline coding schools to create ReskillUSA. “3 months, ” explains ReskillUSA’s website, is “how long it takes a dedicated beginner to learn the skills to qualify for computing and web development jobs.” TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha explains, “By teaming up with other organizations, Codecademy is also hoping to convince employers that completing one of those programs is a meaningful qualification for a job, and that you don’t necessarily need a bachelor’s degree in computer science.” In his Medium post, Codecademy CEO Zach Sims calls on “students learning for the jobs of the future or employers interested in hiring a diverse and skilled workforce – to join us. The future of our economy depends on it.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Codecademy’s ReSkillUSA: Gestation Period For New Developers Is 3 Months

All the National Chains That Offer Free Wi-Fi

Sometimes, you just need to quickly grab some free Wi-Fi while you’re walking through town. You probably know that nearby coffee shops offer Wi-Fi, but tons of retailers and restaurants offer it too—you just need to know where to look. Read more…

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All the National Chains That Offer Free Wi-Fi

ChromeOS Will No Longer Support Ext2/3/4 On External Drives/SD Cards

An anonymous reader writes Chrome OS is based on the Linux kernel and designed by Google to work with web applications and installed applications. Chromebook is one of the selling laptop on Amazon. However, devs decided to drop support for ext2/3/4 on external drivers and SD card. It seems that ChromiumOS developers can’t implement a script or feature to relabel EXT volumes in the left nav that is insertable and has RW privileges using Files.app. Given that this is the main filesystem in Linux, and is thereby automatically well supported by anything that leverages Linux, this choice makes absolutely no sense. Google may want to drop support for external storage and push the cloud storage on everyone. Overall Linux users and community members are not happy at all. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ChromeOS Will No Longer Support Ext2/3/4 On External Drives/SD Cards

Why Screws Tighten Clockwise

One of the six simple machines, a screw is nothing more than an inclined plane wrapped around a center pole. While today screws come in standard sizes, and typically are tightened by turning clockwise (and loosened by turning counterclockwise), this is a recent invention. A great example of how things that seem simple can be really hard to do right, the development of the predicable system we enjoy today took 2, 000 years to invent. Read more…

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Why Screws Tighten Clockwise

Breakthrough In LED Construction Increases Efficiency By 57 Percent

Zothecula writes: With LEDs being the preferred long-lasting, low-energy method for replacing less efficient forms of lighting, their uptake has dramatically increased over the past few years. However, despite their luminous outputs having increased steadily over that time, they still fall behind more conventional forms of lighting in terms of brightness. Researchers at Princeton University claim to have come up with a way to change all that by using nanotechnology to increase the output of organic LEDs by 57 percent. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Breakthrough In LED Construction Increases Efficiency By 57 Percent