60 Minutes Dubbed Engines Noise Over Tesla Model S

cartechboy (2660665) writes “Did you watch the Tesla 60 Minutes segment the other night? If you did, you might have ended up on the floor rolling around laughing like I did. Since when does the Tesla Model S electric car make audible engine noises? Or downshift? Turns out, 60 Minutes dubbed engine noises and a downshift over the Model S running footage. The show claims it was an editing error. Call it what you want, it was absolutely hilarious. A little note to TV producers assigned to cover Tesla Motors in the future: Electric cars don’t upshift or downshift.” At least they didn’t fraudulently blow it up! Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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60 Minutes Dubbed Engines Noise Over Tesla Model S

iOS 7 Bug Lets Thieves Disable Find My iPhone, Delete iCloud Account

As it stands now, Apple’s Find My iPhone feature is pretty much your only hope when it comes to tracking down a stolen device. But thanks to a recently uncovered bug in iOS 7 , even that little layer of protection can be rendered totally useless . Read more…        

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iOS 7 Bug Lets Thieves Disable Find My iPhone, Delete iCloud Account

Will Cameras Replace Sideview Mirrors On Cars In 2018?

cartechboy (2660665) writes “Just the other day we read about how the Department of Transportation will require all manufacturers to include rearview cameras on all new cars produced after May 1, 2018. But there’s something else auto manufacturers are pushing for, the ability to replace sideview mirrors with cameras in 2018. Tesla in particular is pushing for this to happen as traditional mirrors are bulky, and not very aerodynamic. That lump of plastic can cause surprising amounts of drag on an otherwise smooth car body. Camera units are much smaller and can be made streamlined, or even mounted nearly flush with the body, thus reducing aerodynamic drag. The idea has been around since the 1990s, and many concept cars have used cameras instead of sideview mirrors for years. But how will NHTSA respond? Is it finally time to ditch the sideview mirror?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Will Cameras Replace Sideview Mirrors On Cars In 2018?

Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit the Next Green Light

cartechboy (2660665) writes “Hitting that red light sucks. We’ve all been there, and you know what I’m talking about. But what if your car could tell you the ideal speed to maintain to hit the next green light? That’s exactly what’s going to happen in the near future thanks to car-to-car technology. Many automakers are already working on this new tech, and Honda’s the latest to trial such systems. This is all part of what’s known as Universal Traffic Management System which will eventually provide feedback on car-to-car and infrastructure systems before they go into practical use. The system will also be able to tell the driver if a red light is likely to show before reaching an intersection so the driver can slow down, or notify the driver when that red light will turn green. All of this may seem like something that’s supposed to benefit the driver’s temper, but in reality it’s to help save fuel and lower emissions without any physical changes to the car. This is the future, and your vehicle will talk to other vehicles whether you like it or not.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit the Next Green Light

FCC Boosts Spectrum Available To Wi-Fi

bbsguru (586178) writes “Wi-Fi networks will soon be improving thanks to a vote by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today. The FCC voted unanimously to open 100 MHz of wireless spectrum in an unlicensed 5GHz block . The move will increase the number of frequencies available to unlicensed wireless networks (such as those set up through Wi-Fi routers) by nearly 15 percent, and in turn, allow them to handle a greater level of traffic at higher speeds. ‘Today’s action represents the largest amount of spectrum suitable for mobile broadband that the Commission has made available for auction since the 700MHz band was auctioned in 2008, ‘ the FCC wrote in a statement. ‘Access to these bands will help wireless companies meet growing consumer demand for mobile data by enabling faster wireless speeds and more capacity.’ The increased spectrum should mean that Wi-Fi networks will be less congested, and next-gen routers will be able to take better advantage of gigabit broadband speeds that are cropping up all over the country.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FCC Boosts Spectrum Available To Wi-Fi

New York Public Library Releases Over 20,000 Hi-Res Maps

Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes “Finally, you don’t have to raise your voice over a group of whisperers in the New York Public Library to get a better view of its map collection. Actually, you don’t even need to visit the place at all. Over 20, 000 maps and cartographic works from the NYPL’s Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division have been uploaded and made downloadable for the public. ‘We believe these maps have no known U.S. copyright restrictions, ‘ explains a blog post announcing the wholesale release of the library’s map collection. ‘It means you can have the maps, all of them if you want, for free, in high resolution. We’ve scanned them to enable their use in the broadest possible ways by the largest number of people.’ The NYPL is distributing the maps under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, which means you can do whatever you want with the maps.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New York Public Library Releases Over 20,000 Hi-Res Maps

Doctors Are About to Start Human Trials for Suspended Animation

After years of sci-fi-inspired fantasies about the technique, a team of doctors in Pittsburgh are finally ready to start testing out a procedure that involves putting patients in a state of “suspended animation” while they repair their injuries. Put bluntly, they’re going to kill people and bring them back to life. Read more…        

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Doctors Are About to Start Human Trials for Suspended Animation

Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate

An anonymous reader writes “An article at FiveThirtyEight looks at the likelihood of various occupations being replaced by automation. It mentions President Obama’s proposed increase to the federal minimum wage, saying big leaps in automation could reshape that debate. ‘[The wage increase] from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour could make it worthwhile for employers to adopt emerging technologies to do the work of their low-wage workers. But can a robot really do a janitor’s job? Can software fully replace a fast-food worker? Economists have long considered these low-skilled, non-routine jobs as less vulnerable to technological replacement, but until now, quantitative estimates of a job’s vulnerability have been missing from the debate.’ Many minimum-wage jobs are reportedly at high risk, including restaurant workers, cashiers, and telemarketers. A study rated the probability of computerization within 20 years (PDF): 92% for retail salespeople, 97% for cashiers, and 94% for waitstaff. There are other jobs with a high likelihood, but they employ fewer people and generally have a higher pay rate: tax preparers (99%), freight workers (99%), and legal secretaries (98%).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate

NVIDIA Unveils Next Gen Pascal GPU With Stacked 3D DRAM and GeForce GTX Titan Z

MojoKid (1002251) writes “NVIDIA’s 2014 GTC (GPU Technology Conference) kicked off today in San Jose California, with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang offering up a healthy dose of new information on next generation NVIDIA GPU technologies. Two new NVIDIA innovations will be employed in their next-gen GPU technology, now know by its code named ‘Pascal.” First, there’s a new serial interconnect known as NVLink for GPU-to-CPU and GPU-to-GPU communication. Though details were sparse, apparently NVLink is a serial interconnect that employs differential signaling with embedded clock and it allows for unified memory architectures and eventually cache coherency. It’s similar to PCI Express in terms of command set and programming model but NVLink will offer a massive 5 — 12X boost in bandwidth up to 80GB/sec. The second technology to power NVIDIA’s forthcoming Pascal GPU is 3D stacked DRAM technology.The technique employs through-silicon vias that allow the ability to stack DRAM die on top of each other and thus provide much more density in the same PCB footprint for the DRAM package. Jen-Hsun also used his opening keynote to show off NVIDIA’s most powerful graphics card to date, the absolutely monstrous GeForce GTX Titan Z. The upcoming GeForce GTX Titan Z is powered by a pair of GK110 GPUs, the same chips that power the GeForce GTX Titan Black and GTX 780 Ti. All told, the card features 5, 760 CUDA cores (2, 880 per GPU) and 12GB of frame buffer memory—6GB per GPU. NVIDIA also said that the Titan Z’s GPUs are tuned to run at the same clock speed, and feature dynamic power balancing so neither GPU creates a performance bottleneck.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NVIDIA Unveils Next Gen Pascal GPU With Stacked 3D DRAM and GeForce GTX Titan Z

Microsoft Word Zero-Day Used In Targeted Attacks

wiredmikey (1824622) writes “Microsoft warned on Monday of a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2014-1761) in Microsoft Word 2010 that is being actively exploited in targeted attacks. If successfully exploited, an attacker could gain the same user rights as the current user, Microsoft said, noting that users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than accounts with administrative privileges. ‘The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted RTF file using an affected version of Microsoft Word, or previews or opens a specially crafted RTF email message in Microsoft Outlook while using Microsoft Word as the email viewer, ‘ Microsoft explained Microsoft did not share any details on the attacks that leveraged the vulnerability, but did credit Drew Hintz, Shane Huntley, and Matty Pellegrino of the Google Security Team for reporting it to Microsoft.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Word Zero-Day Used In Targeted Attacks