Tag: nuclear-weapons

Iran Cuts Internet Access and Threatens Telegram Following Mass Protests

Long-time Slashdot reader cold fjord writes: As seething discontent has boiled over in Iran leading to mass protests, protesters have taken to the streets and social media to register their discontent… The government has been closing schools and shutting down transportation. Now, as mass protests in Iran go into their third day there are reports that internet access is being cut in cities with protests occurring. Social media has been a tool for documenting the protests and brutal crackdowns against them. Iran previously cut off internet access during the Green Movement protests following the 2009 elections. At the same time the Iranian government is cutting internet access they have called on Telegram, reportedly used by more than 40 million Iranians, to close the channels used by protesters. Telegram is now closing channels used by the protesters while Telegram itself may be shut down in Iran. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Iran Cuts Internet Access and Threatens Telegram Following Mass Protests

It’s Official, Kitty Litter Caused a Drum of Nuclear Waste to Explode  

A drum full of radioactive waste exploded at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico last February, sparking serious safety concerns about the U.S.’s only longterm nuclear storage site. A yearlong government investigation has officially fingered the long-suspected culprit: kitty litter. Read more…

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It’s Official, Kitty Litter Caused a Drum of Nuclear Waste to Explode  

Pentagon Reportedly Hushed Up Chemical Weapons Finds In Iraq

mr_mischief writes “Multiple sources report that the US found remnants of WMD programs, namely chemical weapons, in Iraq after all. Many US soldiers were injured by them, in fact. The Times reports: “From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule. In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5, 000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pentagon Reportedly Hushed Up Chemical Weapons Finds In Iraq

Windows Users, Get Ready For a BIgger-Than-Usual Patch Tuesday

dibdublin (981416) writes with a report from The Register: October is stacking up to be a bumper Patch Tuesday update with nine bulletins lined up for delivery — three rated critical. Cloud security firm Qualys estimates two of the lesser “important” bulletins are just as bad however, as they would also allow malicious code injection onto vulnerable systems. Top of the critical list is an update for Internet Explorer that affects all currently supported versions 6 to 11, on all operating system including Windows RT. Vulnerabilities discovered in most versions of Windows Server, Windows 7 and 8, and the .NET framework are covered in the other pair of critical bulletins. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows Users, Get Ready For a BIgger-Than-Usual Patch Tuesday

Outsourced Tech Jobs Are Increasingly Being Automated

Jason Koebler writes Yahoo announced [Tuesday] it would be laying off at least 400 workers in its Indian office, and back in February, IBM cut roughly 2, 000 jobs there. Meanwhile, tech companies are beginning to see that many of the jobs it has outsourced can be automated, instead. Labor in India and China is still cheaper than it is in the United States, but it’s not the obvious economic move that it was just a few years ago: “The labor costs are becoming significant enough in China and India that there are very real discussions about automating jobs there now, ” Mark Muro, an economist at Brookings, said. “Companies are seeing that automated replacements are getting to be ‘good enough.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Outsourced Tech Jobs Are Increasingly Being Automated

Nearly 2,000 Chicago Flights Canceled After Worker Sets Fire At Radar Center

SpzToid sends this news out of Illinois: Nearly 2, 000 flights in Chicago have been canceled so far today as federal aviation officials slowly resume operations at O’Hare and Midway airports following a fire that was deliberately set at an FAA radar center, apparently by a disgruntled worker. The center handles high-altitude traffic across parts of the Midwest. Controllers there direct planes through the airspace and either hand off the air traffic to other facilities handling high-altitude traffic or direct the planes to terminal radar facilities, including one in Elgin, which in turn direct planes to and from airport towers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nearly 2,000 Chicago Flights Canceled After Worker Sets Fire At Radar Center

2015 Corvette Valet Mode Recorder Illegal In Some States

innocent_white_lamb writes: The 2015 Corvette has a Valet Mode that records audio and video when someone other than the owner is driving the car. Activating the Valet Mode allows you to record front-facing video as well as capture audio from within the car so you can help keep your Corvette safe when it’s in the hands of others. Well, it turns out that recording audio from within the car may be considered a felony in some states that require notice and consent to individuals that they are being recorded. Now GM is sending notices out to dealerships and customers alerting them to this fact as well as promising a future update to the PDR system. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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2015 Corvette Valet Mode Recorder Illegal In Some States

Euclideon Teases Photorealistic Voxel-Based Game Engine

MojoKid writes Not many would argue that current console and PC graphics technologies still haven’t reached a level of “photo-realism.” However, a company by the name of Euclideon is claiming to be preparing to deliver that holy grail based on laser scanning and voxel engine-based technologies. The company has put together a six-minute video clip of its new engine, and its genuinely impressive. There’s a supposed-to-be-impressive unveil around the two minute mark where the announcer declares he’s showing us computer-generated graphics rather than a digital photo — something you’ll probably have figured out long before that point. Euclideon’s proprietary design purportedly uses a laser scanner to create a point cloud model of a real-world area. That area can then be translated into a voxel renderer and drawn by a standard GPU. Supposedly this can be done so efficiently and with such speed that there’s no need for conventional load screens or enormous amounts of texture memory but rather by simply streaming data off conventional hard drives. Previously, critiques have pointed to animation as one area where the company’s technique might struggle. Given the ongoing lack of a demonstrated solution for animation, it’s fair to assume this would-be game-changer has some challenges still to solve. That said, some of the renderings are impressive. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Euclideon Teases Photorealistic Voxel-Based Game Engine

Scientists Twist Radio Beams To Send Data At 32 Gigabits Per Second

concertina226 writes Scientists from three international universities have succeeded in twisting radio beams in order to transfer data at the speed of 32 gigabits per second, which is 30 times faster than 4G LTE wireless technology in use today. The researchers, led by Alan Willner, an electrical engineering professor with the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, successfully demonstrated data transmission rates of 32 gigabits per second across 2.5m of free space in a basement laboratory. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Twist Radio Beams To Send Data At 32 Gigabits Per Second

GM To Introduce Hands-Free Driving In Cadillac Model

cold fjord notes that drivers will be able to switch a new Cadillac model to partial auto-pilo. General Motors Co. (GM), the largest U.S. automaker, will introduce a Cadillac model in two years that can travel on the highway without the driver holding the steering wheel or putting a foot on a pedal. The 2017 Cadillac model will feature “Super Cruise” technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra said yesterday in a speech at the Intelligent Transport System World Congress in Detroit. GM declined to release the name of the model that will carry the feature. Barra also said GM in two years will become the first automaker to equip a model with so-called vehicle-to-vehicle technology that enables the car to communicate with other autos with similar abilities to warn of traffic hazards and improve road safety. GM will make the V2V feature standard on its 2017 Cadillac CTS sedan, debuting in the second half of 2016, she said. The Super Cruise feature will be on a different Cadillac model and goes beyond similar technology available on some Mercedes-Benz models that operates only at low speeds. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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GM To Introduce Hands-Free Driving In Cadillac Model