funny – Page 195

Foxconn Set To Acquire Sharp Corporation For $5.6 Billion

Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturing/assembly company, is reported to be finalizing a deal to acquire Sharp Corporation for $5.6 billion, with the beleaguered company having finally rejected a proposed government rescue package in favor of the deal. Foxconn, formerly known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd, was brought to media attention in 2010, when the company installed suicide nets to stop the high number of employee suicides at company dorms. Although it seems out of the ordinary that one of the world’s few producers of LCD panels is negotiating with Foxconn, the deal is expected to go through, making it one of the biggest foreign takeovers of a Japanese company. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Foxconn Set To Acquire Sharp Corporation For $5.6 Billion

In Japan, a Battle Brewing Over the Right To Record 4k and 8k Broadcasts

AmiMoJo writes: Japanese broadcasters have indicated that 4k and 8k broadcasts may have recording disabled via a ‘do not copy’ flag [via Google Translate], which receivers would be expected to obey. Now the Internet Users Association (MIAU) and Shufuren (Housewives Federation) have submitted documentation opposing the ban. The document points out that the ban will only inconvenience the majority of the general audience, while inevitably failing to prevent unauthorized copying by anyone determined to circumvent the protection. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Low-Cost EEG Head-Sets Promise Virtual Reality Feedback Loops

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from the University of Memphis have found that it’s possible to use a low-cost EEG device such as the $300 Emotiv Epoc to understand how a user is feeling — opening up the path to genuine psycho-biological feedback in virtual/augmented reality scenarios. The Epoc has been used, in combination with the Razer Hydra, to give users control over VR/AR environments, but integrating emotional feedback into VR environments heralds many new possibilities in the fields of medical research, gaming — and, of course, marketing research. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Low-Cost EEG Head-Sets Promise Virtual Reality Feedback Loops

Cheap At $40,000: Phoenix Exoskeleton Gives Paraplegics Legs to Walk With

Fast Company highlights the cheap-for-the-price Phoenix exoskeleton, created by University of California Berkeley professor (and Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory director) Homayoon Kazerooni and a team of his former grad students at SuitX, a company Kazerooni founded in 2013. Set to sell for $40, 000 when it goes on sale next month, the Phoenix sounds expensive — except compared to the alternatives. For paraplegic patients, there are a handful of other powered exoskeletons, but they cost much more, and are engineered for more than the modest goals of the Phoenix, which allows only one thing: slow walking on level ground. That limited objective means that the rig is light (27 pounds), and relatively unobtrusive. Kazerooni says that he’d like the price to go down much further, too, noting that all the technology in a modern motorcyle can be had for the quarter of the price. A slice: [The] only driving motors in Phoenix are at the hip joints. When the user hits a forward button on their crutches, their left hip swings forward. At this moment, the onboard computer signals the knee to become loose, flex, and clear the ground. As the foot hits, the knee joint stiffens again to support the leg. This computer-choreographed process repeats for the right leg. As it happens, this hinged knee joint has another benefit. If the wearer hits something midstep, like a rock or a curb, a powered knee would blindly drive the leg forward anyway, likely leading to a fall. The hinge naturally absorbs such resistance and allows the wearer a chance to compensate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Severe and Unpatched eBay Vulnerability Allows Attackers To Distribute Malware

An anonymous reader writes: Check Point researchers have discovered a severe vulnerability in eBay’s online sales platform, which allows criminals to distribute malware and do phishing campaigns. This vulnerability allows attackers to bypass eBay’s code validation and control the vulnerable code remotely, to execute malicious Javascript code on targeted eBay users. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Severe and Unpatched eBay Vulnerability Allows Attackers To Distribute Malware

France To Pave 1000km of Road With Solar Panels

An anonymous reader writes: France is planning on a project to build 1000 kilometers of road with specially designed solar panels. This project will supply 5 million people in France with electricity if it is successful. Though many solar experts are skeptical of this project, the French government has given the go-ahead to this venture. According to France’s minister of ecology and energy, Ségolène Royal, the tender for this project is already issued under the “Positive Energy” initiative and the test for the solar panels will begin by this spring.The photo voltaic solar panels called “Wattway” which will be used in the project are jointly developed by the French infrastructure firm “Colas” and the National Institute for Solar Energy. The specialty of “Wattway” is that its very sturdy and can let heavy trucks pass over it, also offering a good grip to avoid an accident. Interestingly, this project will not remove road surfaces but instead, the solar panels will be glued to the existing pavement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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France To Pave 1000km of Road With Solar Panels

U.S. Forces Viewed Encrypted Israeli Drone Feeds

iceco2 links to The Intercept’s report that the U.S. and UK intelligence forces have been (or at least were) intercepting positional data as well as imagery from Israeli drones and fighters, through a joint program dubbed “Anarchist, ” based on the island of Cyprus. Among the captured images that the Intercept has published, based on data provided by Edward Snowden, are ones that appear to show weaponized drones, something that the U.S. military is well-known for using, but that the IDF does not publicly acknowledge as part of its own arsenal. Notes iceco2: U.S. spying on allies is nothing new. It is surprising to see the ease with which encrypted Israeli communications were intercepted. As always, it wasn’t the crypto which was broken — just the lousy method it was applied. Ars Technica explains that open-source software, including ImageMagick was central to the analysis of the captured data. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jailbreak Turns Cheap Walkie-Talkie Into DMR Police Scanner

An anonymous reader writes: Last Shmoocon, famous reverse engineer Travis Goodspeed presented his jailbreak of the Chinese MD380 digital handheld radio. The hack has since been published at GitHub with all needed source code to turn a cheap digital radio into the first hardware scanner for DMR digital mobile radio: a firmware patch for promiscuous mode that puts all talk groups through the speaker including private calling. In the U.S. the competing APCO-25 is a suite of standards for digital radio communications for federal users, but a lot of state/county and local public safety organizations including city police dispatch channels are using the Mototrbo MotorolaDMR digital standard. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Jailbreak Turns Cheap Walkie-Talkie Into DMR Police Scanner

Slashdot and SourceForge Sold, Now Under New Management

kodiaktau writes with a link to today’s announcement that DHI Group, Inc. (which you might know better as Dice, the company that bought Slashdot and sister site SourceForge in 2012) today announced that it completed the sale of its Slashdot and SourceForge businesses (together referred to as ‘Slashdot Media’) to BIZX, LLC in a transaction that closed on January 27, 2016. Financial terms were not disclosed. DHI first announced its plan to sell Slashdot Media in July 2015 as part of its strategy to focus on its core brands, as Slashdot Media no longer fits within the Company’s core strategic initiatives. KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. served as the Company’s exclusive financial advisor for the transaction. (FOSS Force has a short article with some more info BIZX and the sale.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Slashdot and SourceForge Sold, Now Under New Management

Large Hadron Collider crew has to pull 9,000 old cables

Even particle physics researchers have messes to clean up now and then. CERN has revealed to Motherboard that it’s pulling 9, 000 obsolete cables in three of the Large Hadron Collider’s injectors in order to make way for newer cabling. That’s a lot of work by itself (many of the cables are dozens of feet long), but it’s made all the more daunting by the consequences of yanking the wrong line. Since the cables are largely for control and safety systems, one wrong move could prevent the entire particle accelerator from working — try explaining that slip-up to your supervisors. The crew has already disconnected 2, 700 of the cables, and expects to remove all of them in 2017. CERN shouldn’t have any problems with the LHC shutdown scheduled for 2019, in other words. And hopefully, this won’t be necessary again. The gigantic amount of clutter stems from a “not-so-good habit” of leaving old cables around, which suggests that engineers will be much smarter about cleaning up in the future. [Image credit: CERN] Source: Motherboard

Ken May

Tag: funny