the_newsbeagle writes: Robert Woo was paralyzed in 2007 when a construction crane dropped a load of steel on him. Yesterday, he put on the newest “exoskeleton, ” essentially a pair of smart robotic legs, and strolled out into a busy Manhattan sidewalk. He was demoing the ReWalk 6.0, a $77, 000 device that he plans to buy for home use. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Paralyzed Man Hits the Streets of NYC In a New Exoskeleton
Trailrunner7 writes with news that “Mozilla has taken the unusual step of disabling by default all versions of Flash in Firefox.” Two flaws that came to light from the recent document dump from Hacking Team could be used by an attacker to gain remote code execution. From Threatpost’s article: One of the flaws is in Action Script 3 while the other is in the BitMapData component of Flash. Exploits for these vulnerabilities were found in the data taken from HackingTeam in the attack disclosed last week. An exploit for one of the Flash vulnerabilities, the one in ActionScript 3, has been integrated into the Angler exploit kit already and there’s a module for it in the Metasploit Framework, as well. Reader Mickeycaskill adds a link to TechWeek Europe’s article, which says these are the 37th and 38th flaws found in Flash so far this month, and that the development “is a blow for Flash after Alex Stamos, Facebook’s new chief security officer, urged Adobe to set an ‘end of life’ date for the much-maligned software.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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New Default: Mozilla Temporarily Disables Flash In Firefox
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Quanta Magazine: [A]fter decades of work, [organic chemist Steven] Benner’s team has synthesized artificially enhanced DNA that functions much like ordinary DNA, if not better. In two papers published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society last month, the researchers have shown that two synthetic nucleotides called P and Z fit seamlessly into DNA’s helical structure, maintaining the natural shape of DNA. Moreover, DNA sequences incorporating these letters can evolve just like traditional DNA, a first for an expanded genetic alphabet. In fact, the article continues, these new nucleotides can actually outperform their natural counterparts: “When challenged to evolve a segment that selectively binds to cancer cells, DNA sequences using P and Z did better than those without.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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New Letters Added To the Genetic Alphabet
MarkWhittington writes: Boeing has had a patent approved for an aircraft engine that uses laser-generated nuclear fusion as a power source, according to a story in Business Insider. The idea is already generating a great deal of controversy, according to the website Counter Punch. The patent has generated fears of what might happen if an aircraft containing radioactive material as fuel were to crash, spreading such fuel across the crash site. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Boeing Patents an Engine Run By Laser-Generated Fusion Explosions
Mickeycaskill writes: Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada claims it cut 25% of its network traffic (40% of video traffic) by deploying Adblock Plus across its internal network. The study tested the ability of the Adblock Plus browser extension (PDF) in reducing IP traffic when installed in a large enterprise network environment, and found that huge amounts of data transfer were saved by blocking web-based advertisements and video trailers. The experiment was carried out over a period of six weeks. Disclaimer: the study was funded by Adblock Plus. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Adblock Plus Reduces University’s Network Traffic By 25 Percent
An anonymous reader notes that ICANN is closing the comment period for its plan to prevent owners of commercial websites from keeping their personal details out of a site’s public-facing registration information. Digital rights groups are taking the opportunity to explain how real harm can result from this decision. The Online Abuse Prevention Initiative posted an open letter to ICANN pointing out the rise of doxing and swatting: “Our concern about doxing is not hypothetical. Randi Harper, a technologist, anti-harassment activist, and founder of the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, was swatted based on information obtained from the Whois record for her domain. The only reason law enforcement did not draw their weapons and break down Harper’s door was that she had previously warned her local police department about swatting.” Cathy Gellis at Popehat refers to the situation surrounding Charles Carreon, the man who antagonized The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman’s webcomic) and issued legal threats to those who called him out. “In that case the critic had selected a domain incorporating Carreon’s name in order to best get his point about Carreon’s thuggery across, which the First Amendment and federal trademark law allowed him to do. … Unfortunately, the registrar immediately caved to Carreon’s pressure and disclosed the critic’s identifying information, thereby eviscerating the privacy protection the critic expected to have, and depended on, for his commentary.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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ICANN’s Plan To End Commercial Website Anonymity Creates Real Problems
DW100 writes: The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has been forced to reject a request for more IPv4 addresses for the first time as its stock of remaining address reaches exhaustion. The lack of IPv4 addresses has led to renewed calls for the take-up of IPv6 addresses in order to start embracing the next era of the internet. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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North America Runs Out of IPv4 Addresses
harrymcc writes: Thirty years ago, a startup called Etak released the Navigator, an in-car navigation system. It provided turn-by-turn driving directions despite the fact that GPS did not exist, and stored its maps–which Etak had to create itself–on cassette tapes. And some of its data and technologies are still in use in today’s navigation apps. Over at Fast Company, Benj Edwards tells this amazing story. I remember reading about (and lusting over) this system back then, in the much-missed DAK catalog. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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How Etak Built a Car Navigation System In 1985
An anonymous reader writes: Experts in materials science at MIT have developed a new process for creating lithium-ion batteries that will drop the associated production costs by half. The researchers say fundamental battery construction techniques have been refined over the past two decades, but not re-thought. “The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version, while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles. Chiang and Carter refer to this as a ‘semisolid battery.’ This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing, and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang. … Instead of the standard method of applying liquid coatings to a roll of backing material, and then having to wait for that material to dry before it can move to the next manufacturing step, the new process keeps the electrode material in a liquid state and requires no drying stage at all. Using fewer, thicker electrodes, the system reduces the conventional battery architecture’s number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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New Manufacturing Technique Halves Cost of Lithium-Ion Batteries
An anonymous reader writes with a report at Mobipicker (linking to a Korea Times story) that a 12-member committee from the International Telecommunication Union has hashed out a formal definition of the speed requirements for 5G mobile networking; the result has been designated IMT-2020, and it specifies that 5G networks should provide data speeds of up to 20Gbps — 20 times faster than 4G. From the Korea Times story: The 5G network will also have a capacity to provide more than 100 megabits-per-second average data transmission to over one million Internet of Things devices within 1 square kilometer. Video content services, including ones that use holography technology, will also be available thanks to the expanded data transmit capacity, the ministry said. … The union also decided to target commercializing the 5G network worldwide by 2020. To do so, it will start receiving applications for technology which can be candidates to become the standard for the new network. Consequently, the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games will be the world’s first international event to showcase and demonstrate 5G technology. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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5G Network Speed Defined As 20 Gbps By the International Telecommunication Union