SanDisk Announces 4TB SSD, Plans For 8TB Next Year

Lucas123 (935744) writes “SanDisk has announced what it’s calling the world’s highest capacity 2.5-in SAS SSD, the 4TB Optimus MAX line. The flash drive uses eMLC (enterprise multi-level cell) NAND built with 19nm process technology. The company said it plans on doubling the capacity of its SAS SSDs every one to two years and expects to release an 8TB model next year, dwarfing anything hard disk drives can ever offer over the same amount of time. he Optimus MAX SAS SSD is capable of up to 400 MBps sequential reads and writes and up to 75, 000 random I/Os per second (IOPS) for both reads and writes, the company said.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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SanDisk Announces 4TB SSD, Plans For 8TB Next Year

3D Printer Lays Down Functioning Circuitry Alongside Thermoplastic

Lucas123 writes: “The Rabbit Proto is a new 3D printer attachment that can be added to a RepRap printer to create circuitry right alongside an existing thermoplastic extruder. While still in prototype, the printer head is expected to ship this summer. The creators of the Rabbit Proto, a group of Standford graduate students, have already printed working prototypes, such as a game controller. So far, the syringe-like printer head has used silver-filled silicon to create circuitry, but the engineers are now working with conductive inks made with graphite. The Rabbit Proto head unit can be pre-ordered for $350, or you can purchase a fully-assembled RepRap 3D printer with the Rabbit Proto head for $2, 499.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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3D Printer Lays Down Functioning Circuitry Alongside Thermoplastic

DARPA Developing the Ultimate Auto-Pilot Software

coondoggie (973519) writes “Call it the ultimate auto-pilot — an automated system that can help take care of all phases of aircraft flight-even perhaps helping pilots overcome system failures in-flight. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will in May detail a new program called Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) that would build upon what the agency called the considerable advances that have been made in aircraft automation systems over the past 50 years, as well as the advances made in remotely piloted aircraft automation, to help reduce pilot workload, augment mission performance and improve aircraft safety.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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DARPA Developing the Ultimate Auto-Pilot Software

Apache OpenOffice Reaches 100 Million Downloads. Now What?

We’re thankfully long past the days when an emailed Word document was useless without a copy of Microsoft Word, and that’s in large part thanks to the success of the OpenOffice family of word processors. “Family, ” because the OpenOffice name has been attached to several branches of a codebase that’s gone through some serious evolution over the years, starting from its roots in closed-source StarOffice, acquired and open-sourced by Sun to become OpenOffice.org. The same software has led (via some hamfisted moves by Oracle after its acquisition of Sun) to the also-excellent LibreOffice. OpenOffice.org’s direct descendant is Apache OpenOffice, and an anonymous reader writes with this excellent news from that project: “The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 170 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today that Apache OpenOffice has been downloaded 100 million times. Over 100 million downloads, over 750 extensions, over 2, 800 templates. But what does the community at Apache need to do to get the next 100 million?” If you want to play along, you can get the latest version of OpenOffice from SourceForge (Slashdot’s corporate cousin). I wonder how many government offices — the U.S. Federal government has long been Microsoft’s biggest customer — couldn’t get along just fine with an open source word processor, even considering all the proprietary-format documents they’re stuck with for now. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apache OpenOffice Reaches 100 Million Downloads. Now What?

Seagate Releases 6TB Hard Drive Sans Helium

Lucas123 (935744) writes “Seagate has released what it said is the industry’s fastest hard drive with up to a 6TB capacity, matching one released by WD last year. WD’s 6TB Ultrastar He6 was hermetically sealed with helium inside, something the company said was critical to reducing friction for additional platters, while also increasing power savings and reliability. Seagate, however, said it doesn’t yet need to rely on Helium to achieve the 50% increase in capacity over it’s last 4TB drive. The company used the same perpendicular magnetic recording technology that it has on previous models, but it was able to increase areal density from 831 bits per square inch to 1, 000. The new drive also comes in 2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacities and with either 12Gbps SAS or 6Gbps SATA connectivity. The six-platter, enterprise-class drive is rated to sustain about 550TB of writes per year — 10X that of a typical desk top drive.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Seagate Releases 6TB Hard Drive Sans Helium

IBM to Invest $100m in User Experience Consulting, Hire 1,000 Employees across Ten Interactive Experience Labs Worldwide

Long before the likes of Facebook and Flickr co-opted the color, the original Big Blue had established itself as a giant in a different era in tech. A perennial fixture of “most valuable brands” lists, IBM is pleased to announce that will be committing over $100 million to “globally expanding its consulting services capability to help clients with experience design and engagement.” The Armonk, NY-based company is capitalizing on its strength in the Big Data with plans to open IBM Interactive Experience labs in Bangalore, Beijing, Groningen, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo. In short, IBM is making a major foray data-driven service design, a nod to a broader definition of product as experience or interaction (a.k.a. the shift from physical to digital, hardware to software, etc.). Shannon Miller, a Global Strategy Leader at IBM Interactive Experience, shared more details on their vision for what the future holds both for IBM, its clients and the end user. Core77: We’ve witnessed the rise of service design (i.e. experience design) as a discipline in its own right, what makes this a good time for IBM to make this major investment in this area? Shannon Miller: We have seen growing client demand in the marketplace around experience design capabilities and the front office transformation—and this market only continues to grow as consumers continuously look for the next best experience. IBM is the only company that can bring research, creative and design skills together with data experts and a traditional consultancy to solve our clients’ biggest problems. We see this demand globally and wanted to expand our reach to create centers around the world where we can collaborate and co-create with clients to develop innovative solutions. To what degree is this data-centric approach to experience design an extension of the company’s long history in the computer industry, and to what degree is a new frontier for IBM’s strengths? Technology is becoming ingrained into the DNA of every business and personal interaction, especially in today’s customer-centric world, and IBM is helping clients understand their customers as individuals through the use of Big Data. While this certainly is an extension of IBM’s 100-plus-year history and commitment to design, IBM researchers within IBM Interactive Experience invented unique algorithms that conduct the analysis for new capabilities—Intelligent Customer Profiles, Influence Analysis and Customer Identity Resolution. These join an existing portfolio of data-driven capabilities including Life Event Detection, Behavioral Pricing and Psycholinguistic Analytics . IBM Interactive Experience is an industry first—a management consultancy and systems integration company combined with a digital agency powered by data and research. IBM Interactive Experience drives insights from data—including information on individual decisions, choices, preferences and attitudes—to transform the customer experience. (more…)

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IBM to Invest $100m in User Experience Consulting, Hire 1,000 Employees across Ten Interactive Experience Labs Worldwide

Incredible Archaeological Discovery May Reset the Buddha’s Birth Date

A dig at the suspected birthplace of the Buddha has led to the discovery of an unknown timber structure beneath a series of brick temples. Remarkably, it’s the first known archaeological evidence linking the life of the Buddha to a specific century. Read more…        

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Incredible Archaeological Discovery May Reset the Buddha’s Birth Date

U.S. District Judge: Forced Decryption of Hard Drives Violates Fifth Amendment

hansamurai writes with an update to a story we’ve been following for a while. Jeffrey Feldman is at the center of an ongoing case about whether or not crime suspects can be forced to decrypt their own hard drives. (Feldman is accused of having child pornography on his hard drives.) After initially having a federal judge say Feldman was protected by the Fifth Amendment, law enforcement officials were able to break the encyption on one of his many seized storage devices. The decrypted contents contained child pornography, so a different judge said the direct evidence of criminal activity meant Feldman was not protected anymore by the Fifth Amendment. Now, a third judge has granted the defense attorney’s emergency motion to rescind that decision, saying Feldman is once again (still?) protected by the Fifth Amendment. Feldman’s lawyer said, “I will move heaven and earth to make sure that the war on the infinitesimal amount of child pornography that recirculates on the Internet does not eradicate the Fifth Amendment the way the war on drugs has eviscerated the Fourth Amendment. This case is going to go many rounds. Regardless of who wins the next round, the other side will appeal, invariably landing in the lap of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and quite possibly the U.S. Supreme Court. The grim reality facing our country today is one where we currently have a percentage of our population behind bars that surpasses even the heights of the gulags in Stalinist Russia. On too many days criminal lawyers lose all rounds. But for today: The Shellow Group: 1, Government: 0.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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U.S. District Judge: Forced Decryption of Hard Drives Violates Fifth Amendment

The PhoneJoy Play: A Gaming-Geek Device Makes a Larger Comment About the Shortcomings of Touchscreen Interface Design

Whether or not you’re interested in videogames, this device is kind of fascinating from an industrial design/interface design point of view. The PhoneJoy Play is essentially a portable input device with a slick mechanical design: The two holdable halves can spread sideways, connected by a telescoping mechanism. Your smartphone or mini-tablet can then be “docked” in the middle, and the variety of buttons and motion pads interact with your device wirelessly. (more…)

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The PhoneJoy Play: A Gaming-Geek Device Makes a Larger Comment About the Shortcomings of Touchscreen Interface Design