Astronauts Find Living Organisms on ISS Exterior
The International Space Station has some squatters. During a routine analysis of samples taken from the exterior of the ISS, astronauts found living sea(!) plankton. They already ruled out the possibility that a spacecraft inadvertently deposited the critters on the ISS surface. Share your theory with us via the comments link.
The bigger mystery is not that the plankton survived, but how they made it all the way up there, 205 miles above Earth. The scientists have already dismissed the possibility that the plankton were simply carried there on a spacecraft from Earth, as the plankton aren't from the region where any ISS module or craft would've taken off. The working theory is that atmospheric currents could be scooping up the organisms then carrying them all the way to the space station, though that would mean the currents could travel an astonishing 205 miles (330 km) above the planet.
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Patch Race in Tor Between Devs and Spies
Spy vs. Spy takes on new meaning if you're talking about Tor. The popular software used to obfuscate a user's digital shadow has been targeted by state intelligence agencies like NSA and GCHQ and defended by counter-intelligence reports from other agents in those same agencies, alleges a Tor Browser engineer.
"There are plenty of people in both organisations who can anonymously leak data to us to say - maybe you should look here, maybe you should look at this to fix this," [Andrew Lewman] said. "And they have."
Mr Lewman is part of a team of software engineers responsible for the Tor Browser - software designed to prevent it being possible to trace users' internet activity. The programs involved also offer access to otherwise hard-to-reach websites, some of which are used for illegal purposes.
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Is Amazon Eying the Online Advertising Market?
The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon may replace third party ads on its websites with a new in-house ad platform. Experts say that Amazon is a "sleeping giant" in the industry because it has a large amount of rich consumer data but has not fully leveraged it for advertising.
For Amazon, more advertising offers the prospect of more revenue and potentially higher profit margins. Amazon remains primarily a retailer, buying goods from suppliers and selling them to customers with small markups. The company operates on notoriously thin profit margins, and frequently posts losses, as it invests for expansion.
Google's ad-supported business is highly profitable. It generated more operating profit in the first six months of this year than Amazon has since it was founded 20 years ago, according to researcher S&P Capital IQ.
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Mars Rover Takes a Licking but Keeps on Ticking
This slideshow shows how rough the environment has been on the Mars rover Curiosity in just 2 years. I wonder if Marvin the Martian has a body shop?
Its wheel damage is the main concern and is more than expected, said Guy Webster, spokesman for the rover project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"It's a type of terrain that wasn't anticipated, with sharp embedded rocks that don't push out of the way when you roll past them," Webster said Friday. "There have been various corrective and avoidance strategies in the past six to eight months, to still have the full life of the mission."
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AMD Radeon R9 285 Announced
Today AMD announced their R9 285 graphics card. You can see the specs below. Release date is September 2.
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AMD 30 Years of Gaming Rebroadcast Available
If you missed today's #AMD30Live 30 Years of Graphics & Gaming event and the announcement of the R9 285X/285 video card, the rebroadcast is available. Kyle's on at 1:10:50, in case you're curious.
For those of you that can't view Twitch from work / school, I've embedded Kyle's segment above.
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iPhone 6 Launch Could Be Delayed Due to Supply Chain Woes
No need to delete your 9/9 Apple Media Event placeholder in your calendar yet but be aware. A setback in the backlight production delayed screen assembly earlier this summer and suppliers are working around the clock to make up for the lost time.
It's unclear whether the hiccup could delay the launch or limit the number of phones initially available to consumers, the sources said, as Apple readies larger-screen iPhones for the year-end shopping season amid market share loss to cheaper rivals. But the issue highlights the risks and challenges that suppliers face to meet Apple's tough specifications, and comes on the heels of a separate screen technology problem, since resolved, in making thinner screens for the larger iPhone 6 model.
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Microsoft Looks to Reduce Cloud Lag Effect on Gaming
Cloud Gaming is back in the news with the release of a paper from Microsoft this week talking about DeLorean. We'll let MS define it in their own words. Alas, no mention of a flux capacitor.
In this paper, we present DeLorean, a speculative execution system for mobile cloud gaming that is able to mask up to 250ms of network latency. DeLorean produces speculative rendered frames of future possible outcomes, delivering them to the client one entire RTT ahead of time; clients perceive no latency. To achieve this, DeLorean combines: 1) future input prediction; 2) state space subsampling and time shifting; 3) misprediction compensation; and 4) bandwidth compression.
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State of Oregon Sues Oracle Over Failed Health Care Website
The drama around the failed Cover Oregon online health insurance exchange website has taken a litigious turn as the state of Oregon has sued Oracle and several of its executives.
The lawsuit, filed in Marion County Circuit Court in Salem, alleges that Oracle officials lied, breached contracts and engaged in "a pattern of racketeering activity." ...In a statement, Oracle called the lawsuit "a desperate attempt to deflect blame from Cover Oregon and the governor for their failures to manage a complex IT project."
"The complaint is a fictional account of the Oregon health care project," the company's statement said. "Oracle is confident that the truth - and Oracle - will prevail in this action."
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FCC Filing Reveals Possible Chromecast Rival from Microsoft
Microsoft revealed via an FCC filing that they are working on a device that features WiFi, HDMI support, and a USB connection. Sounds like a Chromecast to me too. PCWorld sources call this HD-10 device "Miracast dongle." I still love saying "dongle." I feel like I'm 8 and sneakily saying something naughty.
A casting dongle for Windows Phone 8.1 is great for starters, but there may be more to this than just smartphones. Microsoft also built Miracast support into Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1. That means the upcoming Microsoft Miracast dongle should also work with your laptop, desktop, or Windows tablet.
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SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Explodes Midflight During Test
People in McGregor, TX (go ahead and find it on the map... I'll wait) saw an unusual mushroom cloud in the sky on Friday when one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets blew up during a test flight. I wonder how many Tesla Motors Model S cars that was worth?
According to SpaceX, the rocket's systems detected "an anomaly" that led to an automatic termination of the test. A company spokesperson added that it's analyzing the data for more information on what the anomaly was, and how it occurred.
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25K US Government employee records exposed in USIS breach
Earlier this month, we told you about USIS being hacked. Reuters has more detail about the attack, though the investigation is ongoing.
"Records including this data were exposed to unauthorized users during the cybersecurity intrusion," according to a notification letter obtained by Reuters. "We do not yet know whether the data was actually taken."
One DHS official told Reuters the agency has identified some 25,000 employees whose information it believes were exposed in the breach. "More could be notified in coming weeks as we learn more about the breach," said the official, who asked not to be identified by name.
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Microsoft Azure Releases New Services and Updates
Today Microsoft released a major set of updates to Microsoft Azure. Today's updates include:
DocumentDB: Preview of a New NoSQL Document Service for Azure
Search: Preview of a New Search-as-a-Service offering for Azure
Virtual Machines: Portal support for SQL Server AlwaysOn + community-driven VMs
Web Sites: Support for Web Jobs and Web Site processes in the Preview Portal
Azure Insights: General Availability of Microsoft Azure Monitoring Services Management Library
API Management: Support for API Management REST APIs
All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note that some features are still in preview).
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ASUS Z97-A LGA 1150 Motherboard Review
While ASUS is usually known for motherboards like the Maximus and Rampage Extreme series' or even feature rich solutions like the Z97-Deluxe it is motherboards like the Z97-A that are ASUS' bread and butter. Shopping for an inexpensive motherboard doesn't have to mean accepting poor quality feature stripped solutions.
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