Tag: digest-golf

Verizon issues furious response to FCC, in Morse code, dated 1934

Verizon is just so mad at the Federal Communications Commission today that a normal press release wouldn’t do. After all, Verizon issues so many press releases denouncing the FCC for trying to regulate telecommunications that today’s vote on net neutrality required a special one to make sure it would be remembered. So Verizon wrote it in Morse code and set the date as “1934” to make the point that the FCC is taking us backward in time. Verizon sent out the press release in this e-mail: Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon issues furious response to FCC, in Morse code, dated 1934

Intel forges ahead to 10nm, will move away from silicon at 7nm

This week at the 2015 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Intel will provide an update on its new 10nm manufacturing process and new research on how it’s maintaining the march of Moore’s law to 7nm and beyond. The first chips based on Intel’s new 10nm process are expected in late 2016/early 2017, and the company says it’s hoping to avoid the delays that haunted the belabored release of 14nm Broadwell. To hit 7nm, Intel says new materials will be required—as in, it looks like 10nm will finally be the end of the road for silicon. The most likely replacement for silicon is a III-V semiconductor such as indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), though Intel hasn’t provided any specific details yet. ISSCC 2015, being held in San Francisco this week, is where all the big players in silicon (Intel, Samsung, TSMC, IBM, etc.) meet to talk about their latest manufacturing processes and how they might go about overcoming the current barriers to smaller, faster, and denser computer chips. It’s not unusual for Intel to have one of the largest presences at the conference, and this year is no different: it will be presenting three papers on its 14nm technology, hosting sessions on a variety of topics, and Mark Bohr—one of Intel’s most esteemed researchers—will be sitting on a panel that discusses Moore’s law beyond 10nm. The steady march of new CMOS processes driving ever smaller transistors. Intel Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel forges ahead to 10nm, will move away from silicon at 7nm

Linux has 2,000 new developers and gets 10,000 patches for each version

Nearly 2,000 developers started contributing to Linux in the past 15 months, making up nearly half of all developers writing code for the open source operating system kernel. The new developers are helping fuel an ever-bigger Linux community, according to the latest Linux Kernel Development report, which will be released today by the Linux Foundation. The report is expected to be available at this link . “The rate of Linux development is unmatched,” the foundation said in an announcement accompanying the report. “In fact, Linux kernel 3.15 was the busiest development cycle in the kernel’s history. This rate of change continues to increase, as does the number of developers and companies involved in the process. The average number of changes accepted into the kernel per hour is 7.71, which translates to 185 changes every day and nearly 1,300 per week. The average days of development per release decreased from 70 days to 66 days.” Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Linux has 2,000 new developers and gets 10,000 patches for each version

PSA: 51 classic Sega Genesis games on Steam for about five cents each

Over the years, we’ve gotten used to Sega porting much of its library of legacy Genesis title to every platform imaginable, from mobile phones to the PlayStation 3. For those looking for a nostalgic fix, paying a few bucks per game for one of these quick trips down memory lane hasn’t been an awful deal. But paying just about five cents each for a bundle of 51 classic Genesis titles is a bargain basement deal that’s too good for practically any gaming fan to pass up. Amazon is currently selling all five pieces of the “Sega Genesis & Mega Drive Classic” series as downloadable Steam codes for the ridiculously low price of $2.62 . Among the dozens of games in the five-part collection are highlights like Eternal Champions, Gunstar Heroes , Phantasy Star 2, 3 , and 4 , Shining Force 1 and 2 , all three Streets of Rage games, all three Golden Axe games, and Vectorman 1 and 2 . A complete list of included titles is available on these Steam pages . Sold individually, these games usually run $3 each on Steam, which is more than the entire 51-game collection will run you currently on Amazon right now. Even in bundles, the collection usually goes for $37.50 on Steam or $18.70 on Amazon. A a quick look at a Steam price tracker suggests the bulk of the collection (not including the fifth part) has never been offered for less than $14.98 on the service. So depending on how you look at it, the current Amazon price is so that’s anywhere from an 85 to 98 percent savings from what were already some pretty good bundle prices for such a massive selection of classic games. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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PSA: 51 classic Sega Genesis games on Steam for about five cents each

South American ice chemistry records rise of Incas, arrival of Spanish

Ice cores are often relied on to be natural archives of past climate, capturing information that predates both our measurements and our greenhouse gas emissions. They’re a way of having records of the natural world that we don’t have a history of. However, natural archives like these can also act as records of human history, either directly (via fossils or artifacts) or indirectly. In mountainous regions, glacial ice doesn’t go as deep into the past as in Greenland or Antarctica, but it can tell stories of the recent past with excellent resolution. Airborne pollutants, for example, stand out sharply in measurements of the ice. They don’t say “pure as the driven snow” for nothing. Not much of this kind of work has been done in South America, though. Some lake sediment archives have shown the influence of local mining, but the timeline was fuzzy. In a new study, a team led by Chiara Uglietti , now at Switzerland’s Paul Scherrer Institute, has produced a detailed ice core record of air pollution from Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap that goes back to the year 793. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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South American ice chemistry records rise of Incas, arrival of Spanish

Wheel of Time TV pilot producers sue Robert Jordan’s widow for defamation

The tale of the late-night Wheel of Time pilot that aired in a paid infomercial slot on FXX has taken another odd turn. Producers Red Eagle Entertainment LLC and Manetheren LLC have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for central California against Harriet McDougal (widow of James Rigney, who wrote the Wheel of Time novels under the pen name Robert Jordan), her company, Bandersnatch Group Inc., and twenty unnamed other persons (“Does 1-20”). The suit alleges that McDougal’s statements about her lack of involvement in the pilot’s production constitute breach of contract, slander, and interference with contractual relations and prospective economic relations; the suit demands declaratory relief and a jury trial. With the pilot coming essentially out of nowhere and airing with no fanfare, very few fans of the series were even aware of its existence until after the fact; it was clear that the production was accomplished in very little time and on a minimal budget. The resulting effort (titled “Winter Dragon”) did not resemble the series prologue very closely, and it quickly drew strong rebuke from McDougal, who claimed the pilot was made “without my knowledge or cooperation,” and that no one from Robert Jordan’s estate has been involved in any way with it. McDougal claims that Universal currently holds the rights to the Wheel of Time TV series, not Red Eagle Entertainment, and that the pilot made no mention of Universal or her own company, the Bandersnatch Group. That statement was apparently interpreted by Red Eagle Entertainment LLC—the corporate entity that produced the pilot and also claims to hold the television rights to The Wheel of Time —as fighting words. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Wheel of Time TV pilot producers sue Robert Jordan’s widow for defamation

Malicious Google Play apps (may have) hosed millions of Android handsets

Security researchers have once again found Google Play offering malicious apps that have been downloaded by millions of Android users. According to a blog post published Tuesday by antivirus provider Avast, the apps include the Durak card game app and at least two other titles. Combined, those apps have been installed as many as 15 million times. Researcher Filip Chytry wrote: When you install Durak, it seems to be a completely normal and well working gaming app. This was the same for the other apps, which included an IQ test and a history app . This impression remains until you reboot your device and wait for a couple of days. After a week, you might start to feel there is something wrong with your device. Some of the apps wait up to 30 days until they show their true colors. After 30 days, I guess not many people would know which app is causing abnormal behavior on their phone, right? Each time you unlock your device an ad is presented to you, warning you about a problem, e.g. that your device is infected, out of date or full of porn. This, of course, is a complete lie. You are then asked to take action, however, if you approve you get re-directed to harmful threats on fake pages, like dubious app stores and apps that attempt to send premium SMS behind your back or to apps that simply collect too much of your data for comfort while offering you no additional value. It’s not the first time Google’s official Android app bazaar has been found to host malicious apps. In the past, it has offered titles laced with surreptitious remote access trojans , Bitcoin miners , and rogue advertising networks . Three years ago, Google introduced a cloud-based scanner that scours Play for malicious apps , but attackers have been known to bypass it . Google officials regularly remove apps from Play when they are found to be malicious. At the time this post was being prepared, all three flagged by Avast remained available for download. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Malicious Google Play apps (may have) hosed millions of Android handsets

First transistor built using two-dimensional silicon

Since the isolation of graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, researchers have developed a number of other two-dimensional materials. (Yes, they are really three-dimensional; it’s just one of the dimensions is only an atom thick, and therefore negligible.) Knowledge of the periodic table would suggest that elements from the same column as carbon would have similar chemical properties, and therefore be excellent candidates for forming two-dimensional sheets. So, why hasn’t more been done with silicon, the next element down the column from carbon? People have actually made silicene, the silicon version of graphene. But they’ve only managed to make tiny patches of it on silver surfaces; under just about any other conditions, it rapidly reacts with the oxygen in air and disintegrates. On Monday, however, researchers announced that they’d managed to create the first device—a field effect transistor—using silicene. Since interactions with silver protected the silicon sheet, the authors fabricated a large sheet on a thin silver surface. They then capped this with aluminum oxide, which also protected the silicene. At this point, they could etch off some of the aluminum, and use the remaining metal as source and drain contacts. By depositing the alumina on a silicon dioxide surface, the resulting device acted as a field effect transistor. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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First transistor built using two-dimensional silicon

Pilot’s selfies “likely” caused fatal crash, flight investigators say

A pilot’s selfies “likely” caused a single-engine plane crash outside Denver that killed the pilot and sole passenger last year, the National Transportation Safety Board has concluded. The NTSB probe said investigators discovered a GoPro camera near the wreckage that captured footage aboard the two-seater Cessna 150 taken on May 30 and on the day of the May 31 crash. “Based on the evidence of cell phone use during low-altitude maneuvering, including the flight immediately before the accident flight, it is likely that cell phone use during the accident flight distracted the pilot and contributed to the development of spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of control,” the NTSB said . Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Pilot’s selfies “likely” caused fatal crash, flight investigators say

Dish used “small business” discount to save $3 billion at taxpayer expense

Dish took advantage of discounts intended for small businesses to save $3.3 billion in an auction of public airwaves, making a “mockery” of the small business program, according to a member of the Federal Communications Commission. Dish used companies it owns in order to place $13.3 billion worth of winning bids in an auction of wireless airwaves that can be used for cellular networks. Results of the auction were announced last week . But Dish only has to pay $10 billion because it didn’t place the bids directly. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai called upon FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “to immediately launch an investigation into these multi-billion dollar subsidies.” “[T]wo companies in which Dish Network has an 85 percent ownership stake claimed over $3 billion in taxpayer-funded discounts when purchasing spectrum in the AWS-3 auction,” Pai said in his call for an investigation today . “Those discounts came through the FCC’s designed entity (DE) program, which is intended to make it easier for small businesses to purchase spectrum and compete with large corporations. Dish, however, has annual revenues of almost $14 billion, a market capitalization of over $32 billion, and over 14 million customers. Its participation makes a mockery of the DE program.” Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Dish used “small business” discount to save $3 billion at taxpayer expense