Tag: science

Hackers Claim Access To 300 Million iCloud Accounts, Demand $75,000 From Apple To Delete the Cache of Data

A hacker or group of hackers calling themselves the “Turkish Crime Family” claim they have access to at least 300 million iCloud accounts, and will delete the alleged cache of data if Apple pays a ransom by early next month. Motherboard is reporting that the hackers are demanding “$75, 000 in Bitcoin or Ethereum, another increasingly popular crypto-currency, or $100, 000 worth of iTunes gift cards in exchange for deleting the alleged cache of data.” From the report: The hackers provided screenshots of alleged emails between the group and members of Apple’s security team. One also gave Motherboard access to an email account allegedly used to communicate with Apple. “Are you willing to share a sample of the data set?” an unnamed member of Apple’s security team wrote to the hackers a week ago, according to one of the emails stored in the account. (According to the email headers, the return-path of the email is to an address with the @apple.com domain). The hackers also uploaded a YouTube video of them allegedly logging into some of the stolen accounts. The hacker appears to access an elderly woman’s iCloud account, which includes backed-up photos, and the ability to remotely wipe the device. Now, the hackers are threatening to reset a number of the iCloud accounts and remotely wipe victim’s Apple devices on April 7, unless Apple pays the requested amount. According to one of the emails in the accessed account, the hackers claim to have access to over 300 million Apple email accounts, including those use @icloud and @me domains. However, the hackers appear to be inconsistent in their story; one of the hackers then claimed they had 559 million accounts in all. The hackers did not provide Motherboard with any of the supposedly stolen iCloud accounts to verify this claim, except those shown in the video. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hackers Claim Access To 300 Million iCloud Accounts, Demand $75,000 From Apple To Delete the Cache of Data

Norway Plans to Build the World’s First Ship Tunnel

Norway is planning to build the world’s first ship tunnel through the country’s Stad peninsula, which is home to harsh weather conditions that often delay shipments and cause dangerous conditions for ship crews. The proposed tunnel would enable ships to travel through the peninsula in safety. New Atlas recently interviewed Stad Ship Tunnel Project Manager Terje Andreassen about the project: NA: We’d usually expect a canal to be built for this kind of purpose, so why a tunnel? Because in this case we are crossing a hill which is more than 300 meters (384 ft) high. The only alternative is a tunnel. From a maritime point of view this is still a canal, but with a “roof.” NA: How would you go about making such a large tunnel — would you use a boring machine, for example, or explosives? First we will drill horizontally and use explosives to take out the roof part of the tunnel. Then all bolts and anchors to secure the roof rock before applying shotcrete. The rest of the tunnel will be done in the same way as in open mining. Vertical drilling and blasting with explosives down to the level of 12 m (42 ft) below the sea level. NA: How much rock will be removed, and how will you go about removing it? There will be 3 billion cubic meters (over 105 billion cubic ft) of solid rock removed. All transportation from the tunnel area will be done by large barges. NA: What, if any, are the unique challenges to building a ship tunnel when compared with a road tunnel? The challenge is the height of this tunnel. There is 50 m (164 ft) from bottom to the roof, so all secure works and shotcrete must be done in several levels. The tunnel will be made dry down to the bottom. We solve this by leaving some rock unblasted in each end of the tunnel to prevent water flowing in. Assuming it does indeed go ahead — and with the Norwegian government having already set aside the money, this seems relatively likely — the Stad Ship Tunnel will reach a length of 1.7 km (1.05 miles), and measure 37 m (121 ft) tall and 26.5 m (87 ft) wide. It’s expected to cost NOK 2.3 billion (over US$272 million) to build and won’t actually speed up travel times, but instead focuses on making the journey safer. Top-tier architecture and design firm Snohetta has designed the entrances, and the company’s early plans include sculpted tunnel openings and adding LED lighting on the tunnel ceiling. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Norway Plans to Build the World’s First Ship Tunnel

Watch This Guy Catch a Virtual Reality Ball That Turns Out to Be Real

When you strap on all of the gear required for a modern, immersive, virtual reality experience, you’re all but completely blind to the real world. But interacting with real world objects can often enhance a virtual experience, so Disney’s researchers came up with a way to let users catch a real ball without leaving a… Read more…

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Watch This Guy Catch a Virtual Reality Ball That Turns Out to Be Real

Scientists Sent a Rocket To Mars For Less Than It Cost To Make ‘The Martian’

Ipsita Agarwal via Backchannel retells the story of how India’s underfunded space organization, ISRO, managed to send a rocket to Mars for less than it cost to make the movie “The Martian, ” starring Matt Damon as Mark Watney. “While NASA’s Mars probe, Maven, cost $651 million, the budget for this mission was $74 million, ” Agarwal writes. In what appears to be India’s version of “Hidden Figures” (a movie that also cost more to make than ISRO’s budget for the Mars rocket), the team of scientists behind the rocket launch consisted of Indian women, who not only managed to pull off the mission successfully but did so in only 18 months. Backchannel reports: A few months and several million kilometers later, the orbiter prepared to enter Mars’ gravity. This was a critical moment. If the orbiter entered Mars’ gravity at the wrong angle, off by so much as one degree, it would either crash onto the surface of Mars or fly right past it, lost in the emptiness of space. Back on Earth, its team of scientists and engineers waited for a signal from the orbiter. Mission designer Ritu Karidhal had worked 48 hours straight, fueled by anticipation. As a child, Minal Rohit had watched space missions on TV. Now, Minal waited for news on the orbiter she and her colleague, Moumita Dutta, had helped engineer. When the signal finally arrived, the mission control room broke into cheers. If you work in such a room, deputy operations director, Nandini Harinath, says, “you no longer need to watch a thriller movie to feel the thrill in life. You feel it in your day-to-day work.” This was not the only success of the mission. An image of the scientists celebrating in the mission control room went viral. Girls in India and beyond gained new heroes: the kind that wear sarees and tie flowers in their hair, and send rockets into space. User shas3 notes in a comment on Hacker News’ post: “If you are interested in Indian women scientists and engineers, there is a nice compilation (a bit tiresome to read, but worth it, IMO) of biographical essays called ‘Lilvati’s Daughters.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Sent a Rocket To Mars For Less Than It Cost To Make ‘The Martian’

FBI Arrests Man For Allegedly Sending Journalist Seizure-Causing GIF

On Friday, the Dallas FBI confirmed to Gizmodo that it has made an arrest in a case involving Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who claims a man sent him a GIF over Twitter that triggered his epilepsy, causing him to have a seizure. A Dallas FBI spokesperson told Gizmodo that a press release with more details on… Read more…

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FBI Arrests Man For Allegedly Sending Journalist Seizure-Causing GIF

Netflix offers 20 classic ‘MST3K’ episodes to the world

In the not-too distant future (April 14th, 2017 AD), a brand-new season of crowdfunded Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes will hit Netflix . Before then, however, 20 classic episodes of the show have been added to the streaming service globally both to whet appetites and create new fans of the cult classic. The episodes include fan favorites as Manos: The Hands of Fate , Time Chasers and Space Mutiny . It’s not the first time that Netflix has used such a strategy, offering a show across its global audience in time for a revival. For instance, while Gilmore Girls was available in the US since October 2014, Netflix released the show worldwide on July 1st. That paved the way for the Year in the Life revival series, which made its global debut the subsequent November. Similarly, a handful of MST3k episodes have appeared on US Netflix, but this could be its widest rollout since. Owing to the mishmash of varying rights holders, it’s never been easy to watch MST3k episodes outside the US. By releasing 20 of the show’s finest episodes, including Space Mutiny , the number of people who can recall that weird show with the puppets talking through movies should increase substantially. We’d pepper this closing line with in-jokes, but let’s be honest, it is just a show, and we should really just relax.

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Netflix offers 20 classic ‘MST3K’ episodes to the world

Startup Makes the First Lab-Grown Chicken Tender and Duck L’Orange

A San Francisco startup plated some fairly familiar dishes at a tasting yesterday, like fried chicken with collared greens and duck l’orange. But these meats didn’t come from gutted bird corpses. They were all lab-grown, and our lab-grown meat experts are bummed we were not invited to taste, too. Not that we would… Read more…

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Startup Makes the First Lab-Grown Chicken Tender and Duck L’Orange

Microsoft’s Project Scorpio Will Pack Internal PSU, 4K Game DVR Capture

According to an exclusive report from Windows Central, Microsoft’s upcoming “Project Scorpio” gaming console will feature an internal power supply unit (PSU), similar to the Xbox One S, and 4K game DVR and streaming at 60 frames-per-second (FPS). From the report: In Microsoft’s efforts to make Project Scorpio a true 4K system, it will also feature HEVC and VP9 codecs for decoding 4K streams for things such Netflix, just like the Xbox One S. It will also leverage HEVC for encoding 2160p, 60 frame-per-second (FPS) video for Game DVR and streaming. Microsoft’s Beam streaming service has been running public 4K stream tests for some time, and it’s now fair to assume it will not only be PC streamers who will benefit. Project Scorpio’s Game DVR will allow you to stream and record clips in 4K resolution with 60FPS, according to our sources, which is a massive, massive step up from the 720p, 30FPS you get on the current Xbox One. With every bit of information we receive about Project Scorpio, the theme of native 4K keeps appearing — not only for games, but also console features. We now believe Scorpio will sport 4K Game DVR, 4K Blu-ray playback, and 4K streaming apps, but the real showstopper will be the 4K games Microsoft will likely flaunt at E3 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft’s Project Scorpio Will Pack Internal PSU, 4K Game DVR Capture

Scientists Made the Perfect Underwater Glue By Stealing an Idea From Shellfish

Even the strongest artificial glues are completely useless when you try to apply them underwater, but somehow shellfish are able to hold fast to rocks to deter predators from trying to carry them away. Clearly,   nature has already figured out how to make glues that work underwater , and now researchers may have… Read more…

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Scientists Made the Perfect Underwater Glue By Stealing an Idea From Shellfish