Three New Exoplanets Seen In Direct Photographs

The Bad Astronomer writes “Planets orbiting other stars are usually found indirectly (by blocking their stars’ light or inducing a Doppler shift in the light as they orbit, for example), but direct images of exoplanets are extremely rare. However, using the 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii, astronomers have taken photographs of three nearby exoplanets, all young, massive, and hot. One may be massive enough to count as a brown dwarf, but the other two are more likely in the planet-mass range. All three are very far from their stars, which means they may have formed differently than the planets in our solar system.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Three New Exoplanets Seen In Direct Photographs

YuFu Is A Range Of Bluetooth 4.0 Styli For Pro Digital Artists & Amateur Scribblers

Hex3 , the company behind a successfully Kickstarted pressure-sensitive stylus called  JaJa , and a follow-up stylus for tablets, called  Nota , which had a (relatively) fine 3.7mm tip to make scribbling on a slate more precise, is expanding its line-up with three new stylus products – under a new brand name, YuFu. Once again, the startup has taken to Kickstarter to get the required minimum orders to fire up production of the YuFu, YuFu Pro and YuFu Focus. It’s seeking to raise $25,000, and is more than half way there with 30 days left on its campaign. If successful it’s aiming to ship to backers next April. It’s a couple of years since pressure sensitive styluses arrived so the YuFu is definitely facing more competition than Hex3′s earlier  JaJa . Which presumably is why it’s spreading its bets with multiple models, as well as focusing on a premium, hardwearing build, with the YuFu rocking a slim, metal-case design that resembles a mechanical pencil. The YuFu Pro – aimed at “serious artists” – has 4,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, with the function built into the pen, rather than the tip so you vary how much you squeeze it, rather than how hard you press it against the glass (to limit fatigue). It also has tilt sensors for shading and calligraphy, optional gestures such as tap and shake to erase, plus an ultrafine tip (1.9mm). This model is $65 for Kickstarter backers, but will retail for $99 in future. The mid-range YuFu Focus has 64 levels of pressure sensitivity and the same ultrafine 1.9mm tip. Hex3 says this model is for “creative business and art school use”. It’s $49 for Kickstarter early birds, rising to $79  retail post-Kickstarter. While the basic YuFu – aimed at “anyone who uses a tablet for notes or drawing” but doesn’t need pressure sensitivity to vary the flow of digital ink or an ultrafine tip – offers the same hardwearing metal construction and interchangeable tips (with brush, teflon or rubber tips) that all the models have but is designed for less precise scribbling. This model is up for grabs at an early bird Kickstarter price of $25, rising to $39 retail post-Kickstarter. The YuFu styli are powered by 1x AAAA battery apiece. They use Bluetooth Low Energy to connect to the tablet, so are compatible with the iPad 3 and above, and the iPad mini. They will also work with other tablets that have support for BLE, according to Hex3 – so some Android tabs might also work. What apps can you use YuFu with? Hex3 hasn’t listed compatible apps by name, rather it says it will support “all of the Apps you could need”. And includes the below graphic depicting currently supported apps. It’s worth noting that functions such as the YuFu Pro’s Gyro sensor (to support shading) will only work with “integrated apps”. So if your art app of choice doesn’t appear below you may want to ask if they’re planning to support it before pledging any cash.

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YuFu Is A Range Of Bluetooth 4.0 Styli For Pro Digital Artists & Amateur Scribblers

Bits of T. Rex tissue survived for millions of years

In 2005, scientists found some soft tissue in the fossilized leg of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Now, they can confirm that, yes, that is T. Rex collagen. What’s more, there’s preserved collagen in lots of other T. Rex fossil specimens. How’d it survive? Stephanie Pappas at NBC News explains .        

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Bits of T. Rex tissue survived for millions of years

PeeperPeerer Catches Who Has Been Snooping on Your Private Messages

Android: If you suspect your roommate or anyone else has been reading your private messages on your phone, then PeeperPeeper can catch them red-handed. The app creates fake shortcuts for popular messaging apps and takes a photo when someone opens them. Read more…        

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PeeperPeerer Catches Who Has Been Snooping on Your Private Messages

Nasdaq 4000 — This Time It’s Different?

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes, quoting USA Today “The NASDAQ has topped 4000 for the first time in 13 years, but much has changed since then. … Tech investors in 2000 were right about the possibilities of the Internet and mobile computing. But they were dead wrong about which companies would be in the vanguard … The recovery of the NASDAQ has been a complex tale of creative destruction, where old companies that once fueled the index have been pushed aside by new players. Back in 2000, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel, Oracle, and Sun accounted for 8.9%, 8.5%, 7.1%, 3.6% and 2.6%, respectively, of the value of the NASDAQ composite. Today, companies that were just starting out or didn’t even exist — think Google, Amazon, and Facebook — are in the top 10, accounting for 4.7%, 2.7% and 1.5% of NASDAQ’s value. Microsoft, Cisco and Intel’s weight has fallen sharply. Apple, which wasn’t in the top 10 in 2000, is a behemoth at 7.9%. So is the NASDAQ enjoying a long overdue catch-up with the rest of the market, or is the broad market overpriced, with the NASDAQ being pulled along for the ride? ‘The reality is that the only thing that’s the same from Nasdaq 4000 in 1999 and Nasdaq 4000 in 2013, ‘ says Doug Sandler, ‘is the number 4000.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nasdaq 4000 — This Time It’s Different?

Chicago Transit System Fooled By Federal ID Cards

New submitter johnslater writes “The Chicago Transit Authority’s new ‘Ventra’ stored-value fare card system has another big problem. It had a difficult birth, with troubles earlier this fall when legitimate cards failed to allow passage, or sometimes double-billed the holders. Last week a server failure disabled a large portion of the system at rush hour. Now it is reported that some federal government employee ID cards allow free rides on the system. The system is being implemented by Cubic Transportation Systems for the bargain price of $454 million.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Chicago Transit System Fooled By Federal ID Cards

A Co-processor No More, Intel’s Xeon Phi Will Be Its Own CPU As Well

An anonymous reader writes “The Xeon Phi co-processor requires a Xeon CPU to operate… for now. The next generation of Xeon Phi, codenamed Knights Landing and due in 2015, will be its own CPU and accelerator. This will free up a lot of space in the server but more important, it eliminates the buses between CPU memory and co-processor memory, which will translate to much faster performance even before we get to chip improvements. ITworld has a look.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A Co-processor No More, Intel’s Xeon Phi Will Be Its Own CPU As Well

This Infographic Shows Which Sites Properly Encypt Your Data

No company out there wants to admit it, but the fact is, there’s always a reasonable chance they’ll get hacked. If they don’t encrypt your data, those hacks reveal all kinds of information about you very easily. So, to see who’s doing encryption well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation decided to come up with a chart that looks at a number of the big companies. Read more…        

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This Infographic Shows Which Sites Properly Encypt Your Data

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