Tag: technology

Microsoft Releases Out-of-Band Security Patch For Windows

mrspoonsi writes Microsoft has announced today that they will be pushing an out-of-band security patch today. The patch, which affects nearly all of the company’s major platforms, is rated ‘critical’ and it is recommended that you install the patch immediately. The patch is rated ‘critical’ because it allows for elevation of privileges and will require a restart. The platforms that are affected include: Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT and Windows RT 8.1 and Windows 10 Technical Preview customers are affected, too. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Releases Out-of-Band Security Patch For Windows

US DOE Sets Sights On 300 Petaflop Supercomputer

dcblogs writes U.S. officials Friday announced plans to spend $325 million on two new supercomputers, one of which may eventually be built to support speeds of up to 300 petaflops. The U.S. Department of Energy, the major funder of supercomputers used for scientific research, wants to have the two systems – each with a base speed of 150 petaflops – possibly running by 2017. Going beyond the base speed to reach 300 petaflops will take additional government approvals. If the world stands still, the U.S. may conceivably regain the lead in supercomputing speed from China with these new systems. How adequate this planned investment will look three years from now is a question. Lawmakers weren’t reading from the same script as U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz when it came to assessing the U.S.’s place in the supercomputing world. Moniz said the awards “will ensure the United States retains global leadership in supercomputing.” But Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) put U.S. leadership in the past tense. “Supercomputing is one of those things that we can step up and lead the world again, ” he said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US DOE Sets Sights On 300 Petaflop Supercomputer

Android 5.0 Lollipop, thoroughly reviewed

Android updates don’t matter anymore—or at least that’s what many people think. Back-to-back-to-back Jelly Bean releases and a KitKat release  seemed to only polish what already existed. When Google took the wraps off of “Android L” at Google I/O, though, it was clear that this release was different. Android 5.0, Lollipop is at least the biggest update since Android 4.0, and it’s probably the biggest Android release ever. The update brings a complete visual overhaul of every app, with a beautiful new design language called “Material Design.” Animations are everywhere, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a single pixel from 4.4 that was carried over into 5.0—Google even revamped the fonts. 5.0 also brings a ton of new features. Notifications are finally on the lockscreen, the functionality of Recent Apps has been revamped to make multitasking a lot easier, and the voice recognition works everywhere—even when the screen is off. The under-the-hood renovations are just as extensive, including a completely new camera API with support for RAW images, a system-wide focus on battery life, and a new runtime—ART—that replaces the aging Dalvik virtual machine. Read 171 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android 5.0 Lollipop, thoroughly reviewed

Researchers Demonstrate Electrically Activated Micro-Muscles

mpicpp sends news of research at the University of Michigan in which a self-assembling chain of particles can be used as tiny, electrically-activated muscles. The team started with particles similar to those found in paint, with diameters of about a hundredth the width of a strand of hair. They stretched these particles into football shapes and coated one side of each football with gold. The gilded halves attracted one another in slightly salty water—ideally about half the salt concentration in the sports drink Powerade. The more salt in the water, the stronger the attraction. Left to their own devices, the particles formed short chains of overlapping pairs, averaging around 50 or 60 particles to a chain. When exposed to an alternating electric field, the chains seemed to add new particles indefinitely. But the real excitement was in the way that the chains stretched. … While the force generated by the fibers is about 1, 000 times weaker than human muscle tissue per unit area, it may be enough for microbots. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Demonstrate Electrically Activated Micro-Muscles

Radar-Enabled Light Bulbs Automatically Detect When the Elderly Fall

Even when the elderly are being tended to by a caregiver, it’s almost impossible to keep an eye on them 100 percent of the time. So a Japanese company has developed a pair of LED light bulbs featuring built-in laser-based radar to track the movements of someone in its vicinity, and automatically send alerts when they have fallen or suddenly stopped moving. Read more…

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Radar-Enabled Light Bulbs Automatically Detect When the Elderly Fall

Amazon Echo: An Intelligent Speaker That Listens to Your Commands

Amazon Echo is a speaker that has a voice assistant built in. If you ask it a question its got an answer. If you tell it to do stuff, it complies. Well, this is different. Read more…

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Amazon Echo: An Intelligent Speaker That Listens to Your Commands

North Korea’s Brand New Ballistic Sub Discontinued by Soviets in 1990

Looks like North Korea’s engineers have been hard at work brushing up on their obsolete Soviet-era technology. Because after acquiring 10 discontinued Soviet subs, everyone’s favorite little warmongering-dictatorship-that-could has finally rendered the outdated ballistic vessels seaworthy—and it only took them 21 years. Read more…

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North Korea’s Brand New Ballistic Sub Discontinued by Soviets in 1990

Tri-Fold Touchscreen OLED Could Give You Way More Smartphone Real Estate

In addition to satellites and computers smaller than a giant room, Arthur C. Clarke also predicted mobile touchscreen devices that could be crumpled up like a handkerchief and stuffed in a pocket. Thanks to researchers at Japan’s Semiconductor Energy Laboratory company , we’re almost there. Read more…

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Tri-Fold Touchscreen OLED Could Give You Way More Smartphone Real Estate

Windows 8 and 8.1 Pass 15% Market Share, Windows XP Drops Below 20% Mark

An anonymous reader writes Everyone is well-aware by now that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have not seen the impressive adoption rate of their predecessor. Yet the duo had a particularly good run last month, finally passing 15 percent market share together. Together, they owned 16.80 percent of the market at the end of October, up from 12.26 percent at the end of September. Windows XP meanwhile dropped a whopping 6.69 points to 17.18 percent. The biggest catalyst for these changes was most likely back to school sales in September, which are better reflected in the data after students use their new machines for a full month. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 8 and 8.1 Pass 15% Market Share, Windows XP Drops Below 20% Mark

Integrated Circuit Amplifier Breaches Terahertz Barrier

jenningsthecat writes: DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program has created “the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured.” The Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC), boasts a gain of 9dB — previously unheard of for a monolithic device in this frequency range. Plus, the status of “fastest” has been certified by Guinness — seriously! (‘Cause you might not trust DARPA, but you gotta trust Guinness — right?). In related news, DARPA has also created a micro-machined vacuum power amplifier operating at 850 GHz, or 0.85 THz. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Integrated Circuit Amplifier Breaches Terahertz Barrier