technology – Page 224

First Hidden Electric Motor In Cycling World Championship

An anonymous reader writes with the story that the world championship cyclocross competition this weekend in Zolder (Belgium) was scandalized by the first case of “mechanical doping.” European champion Femke Van Den Driessche was caught with a bicycle with a hidden electric motor. From the article: The Union Cycliste Internationale said in a statement âoethat pursuant to the UCIâ(TM)s Regulations on technological fraud a bike has been detained for further investigation following checks at the Womenâ(TM)s Under 23 race of the 2016 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships. This does not concern any of the riders on the podium. Further details will be shared in due course.â The Belgian media outlet Sporza reported that the Belgian Cycling Federation had confirmed that the detained bike belonged to Van den Driessche. Ironically, Van den Driessche had abandoned the race due to a mechanical issue shortly before the bike was scrutinised. Van den Driesscheâ(TM)s name did not feature in the official results on the UCI website on Saturday evening. Cyclocross Magazine adds some details. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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.

VR games Audioshield, Hover Junkers lead latest wave of HTC Vive stunners

SEATTLE, Washington—How many times can a publication attend a virtual reality showcase and walk away stunned by something it’s never seen before? Judging by the past few years of Ars’ VR explorations, quite a few . As such, we don’t blame readers who might say, “Tap the VR brakes, Ars.” Still, this week’s SteamVR Developer Showcase event is forcing us to reach into the hyperbole bag once more. The event blew us away thanks to a number of never-before-seen stunners, along with previously announced HTC Vive titles that have only gotten better in the oven before their retail launch later this year. (April, we hope .) “Room scale” VR is a tough sell, especially for people whose homes don’t easily accommodate enough cleared-out space for walking around with a headset on, but while we’ve already been impressed with what the platform can support, we didn’t think we could be impressed any further. We were wrong. Read below to see why we’re currently trying to put our kids, pets, beds, and significant others up for adoption—so we can hurry up and make space for this incredible new platform. (Sorry, sweeties.) Read 42 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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VR games Audioshield, Hover Junkers lead latest wave of HTC Vive stunners

Ask Slashdot: Why Are Major Companies Exiting the Spam Filtering Business?

broswell writes: For years we used Postini for spam filtering. Google bought Postini in 2007, operated it for 5 years and then began shutting it down. Then we moved to MX Logic. McAfee bought MX Logic, and McAfee was purchased by Intel. Now Intel is shutting down the service. Neither company chose to raise prices, or spin off the division. Anyone want to speculate on the reasons? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ask Slashdot: Why Are Major Companies Exiting the Spam Filtering Business?

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

HTC Vive Pre impressions: A great VR system has only gotten better

Sam Machkovech Say hello to the HTC Vive Pre—the near-final version of the VR system. The headset comes complete with two tracking wands and two laser-tracking stations. 12 more images in gallery SEATTLE, Washington—Valve and HTC took the wraps off of their latest, near-final version of the Vive virtual reality system at this month’s CES, but we barely got a chance to play with the refreshed headset. That changed on Wednesday thanks to an event hosted in Valve’s hometown of Seattle, where the company offered Ars 12 lengthy demos of upcoming games and apps. Our detailed impressions of those dozen demos are forthcoming, but in the meantime, we have good news. The pre-release Vive Pre hardware may not be phenomenally better than the original Vive dev kit, but every change has made an already-impressive VR system feel that much more complete, comfortable, and worth salivating over. Like the original HTC Vive dev kit , the Vive Pre asks users to wear a VR headset whilst walking around a pre-defined, real-life space and holding motion-tracked wands in each hand. These wands’ main buttons are still a gun-like trigger and a thumb-accessible, clickable trackpad; in addition, the handle has a button on each side of the controller’s grip, and those are now positioned for easier hand access. New menu buttons have been placed above and below the trackpad, as well. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Facebook Building World’s ‘Most Advanced’ Data Center In Irish Village

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook has announced it is building a new data center in Clonee, Ireland, a small village close to Dublin. The facility, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims will be one of the “most advanced and energy efficient data centers in the world, ” will be the social network’s second outside of the U.S., and its sixth globally. The new center will be located just a 30-minute drive from Facebook’s international headquarters in the country’s capital. It is expected to cost €200 million and employ around 2, 000 people during the construction phase. The company hopes to open the facility in early 2018. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Facebook Building World’s ‘Most Advanced’ Data Center In Irish Village

Ransomware Hits Three Indian Banks, Causes Millions In Damages

An anonymous reader writes: Ransomware has locked computers in three major Indian banks and one pharmaceutical company. While the ransom note asks for 1 Bitcoin, so many computers have been infected that damages racked up millions of dollars. According to an antivirus company that analyzed the ransomware, it’s not even that complex, and seems the work of some amateur Russians. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ransomware Hits Three Indian Banks, Causes Millions In Damages

Ken May

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