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Submission + - Elon Musk, Tesla CTO Talk Model X Details, Model S Upgrades (greencarreports.com)

Submitted by joe5
joe5 writes: Tesla Motors tries to keep product details quiet for the most part, but in a recent Q & A session in Norway (Teslas sell extremely well there) Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the company's CTO JB Straubel discussed some interesting nuggets about the Model S, the upcoming Model X SUV, and the company's planned Model E sedan. One hint: the production Model X will definitely have the crazy "falcon doors." (video and transcript in the article)

Submission + - Graphene conducts electricity ten times better than expected (nature.com) 1

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Physicists have produced nanoribbons of graphene — the single-atom-thick carbon — that conduct electrons better than theory predicted even for the most idealized form of the material. The finding could help graphene realize its promise in high-end electronics, where researchers have long hoped it could outperform traditional materials such as silicon.
In graphene, electrons can move faster than in any other material at room temperature. But techniques that cut sheets of graphene into the narrow ribbons needed to form wires of a nano-scale circuit leave ragged edges, which disrupt the electron flow. Now a team led by physicist Walt de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has made ribbons that conduct electric charges for more than 10 micrometres without meeting resistance — 1,000 times farther than in typical graphene nanoribbons. The ribbons made by de Heer's team in fact conduct electrons ten times better than standard theories of electron transport they should, say the authors.

Submission + - A Bipartisan Group Of Lawmakers Is Out To Kill The Corn-Based Ethanol Mandate (thinkprogress.org)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "Teams of lawmakers are working hard on bills to cut corn-based ethanol out of the country’s biofuel mandate entirely, according to National Journal.

It’s the latest twist in America’s fraught relationship with biofuels, which started in 2005 when Congress first mandated that a certain amount of biofuel be mixed into the country’s fuel supply. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was then expanded in 2007, with separate requirements for standard biofuel on the one hand and cellulosic and advanced biofuels on the other. The latter are produced from non-food products like cornstalks, agricultural waste, and timber industry cuttings.

The RFS originally called for 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2010, 250 million in 2011, and 500 million in 2012. Instead, the cellulosic industry failed to get off the ground. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was forced to revise the mandate down to 6.5 million in 2010, and all the way down to zero in 2012.

The cellulosic mandate has started to slowly creep back up, and 2014 may be the year when domestic production of cellulosic ethanol finally takes off.

But then last month EPA did something else for the first time: it cut down the 2014 mandate for standard biofuel, produced mainly from corn. And now Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have teamed up on legislation that would eliminate the standard biofuel mandate entirely. The mandates for cellulosic biofuel, biodiesel, and advanced biofuels (the previous two fall under this broader category) would remain."

Submission + - Bionic Eye Implant Available In U.S. Next Month (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: Starting next month, Americans suffering from degenerative eye diseases can get excited about the launch of the Argus II, a bionic eye implant to partially restore vision. Designed for those suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, the Argus II is a headset that looks akin to Google Glass but is actually hard wired into the optic nerve to transmit visual information from a 60 electrode array. The device opens the door for similar "humanitarian" implants that both reduce the difficulty in getting government approval and increase the adoption of brain implants.

Submission + - More Evidence the NSA is Harming American's Economy 2

Submitted by anagama
anagama writes: "Cisco has seen a huge drop-off in demand for its hardware in emerging markets, which the company blames on fears about the NSA using American hardware to spy on the rest of the world. ... Cisco saw orders in Brazil drop 25% and Russia drop 30%. ... Analysts had expected Cisco’s business in emerging markets to increase 6%, but instead it dropped 12%, sending shares of Cisco plunging 10% in after-hours trading."

This is in addition to the harm caused to remote services that may cost $35 billion over the next three years. Then of course there are the ways the NSA has made ID theft easier. ID theft cost Americans $1.52 billion in 2011, to say nothing of the time wasted in solving ID theft issues — some of that figure is certainly attributable to holes the NSA helped build.

The NSA, its policies, and the politicians who support the same are directly responsible for massive losses of money and jobs which might cause one to wonder, why do these people hate America and Americans so much?

Submission + - Internet Archive Burns (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Rambo Tribble
Rambo Tribble writes: The San Francisco building housing the Internet Archive, and its popular Wayback Machine, has suffered a serious fire. While no archived data was destroyed, materials awaiting archival were. Rebuilding with be a major undertaking, and the group is soliciting donations.

Submission + - Car hackers mess with speedos, odometers, alarms and locks (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: Researchers have demonstrated how controller area networks in cars can make vehicles appear to drive slower than their actual speed, manipulate brakes, wind back odometers and set off all kinds of alarms and lights from random fuzzing.
The network weaknesses stem from a lack of authentication which they say is absent to improve performance. The researchers have also built a $25 open-source fuzzing tool to help others enter the field.

Submission + - ATI takes crown away from Nvidia for almost half the price as fastest GPU (maximumpc.com)

Submitted by Billly Gates
Billly Gates writes: AMD may have trouble in their CPU department with Intel having superior fabrication plants. However, in the graphics market with GPU chips AMD is on fire! AMD earned a very rare Elite reward from Tomshardware as the fastest GPU available with its fastest r9 for as little as $550 each. NVidia has its top end GPU cards going for $1,000 as it had little competition to worry about. Maximum PC also included some benchmarks and crowned ATI as the fastest and best value card available. AMD/ATI also has introduced MANTLE Api for lower level access than DirectX which is cross platform. This may turn into a very important API as AMD/ATI have their GPUs in the next generation Sony and Xbox consoles as well with a large marketshare for game developers to target

Submission + - AMD's Radeon R9 290X Launched, Faster Than GeForce GTX 780 For Roughly $100 Less (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: AMD has launched their new top-end Radeon R9 290X graphics card today. The new flagship wasn't ready in time for AMD's recent October 8th launch of midrange product, but their top of the line model, based on the GPU codenamed Hawaii, is ready now. The R9 290 series GPU (Hawaii) is comprised of up to 44 compute units with a total of 2,816 IEEE-2008 compliant shaders. The GPU has four geometry processors (2x the Radeon HD 7970) and can output 64 pixels per clock. The Radeon R9 290X features 2816 Stream Processors and an engine clock of up to 1GHz. The card's 4GB of GDDR5 memory is accessed by the GPU via a wide 512-bit interface and the R290X requires a pair of supplemental PCIe power connectors—one 6-pin and one 8-pin. Save for some minimum frame rate and frame latency issues, the new Radeon R9 290X's performance is impressive overall. AMD still has some obvious driver tuning and optimization to do, but frame rates across the board were very good. And though it wasn't a clean sweep for the Radeon R9 290X versus NVIDIA's flagship GeForce GTX 780 or GeForce GTX Titan cards, AMD's new GPU traded victories depending on the game or application being used, which is to say the cards performed similarly.

Submission + - 4K Ultra HD Likely to Repeat the Failure of 3D Television

Submitted by tvf_trp
tvf_trp writes: Fox Sports VP, Jerry Steinbers, has just announced that the broadcaster is not looking to implement 4K broadcasting (which offers four times the resolution of today's HD), stating that 4K Ultra HD is a "monumental task with not a lot of return". Digital and broadcasting specialists have raised concerns about the future of 4K technology drawing parallels with the 3D's trajectory, which despite its initial hype has failed to establish a significant market share due to high price and lack of 3D content. While offering some advantages over 3D (no need for specs, considerable improvement in video quality, etc), 4K's prospects will remain precarious until it can get broadcasters and movie makers on board.

Submission + - British NHS May Soon No Longer Offer Free Care (independent.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Coinciding with challenges in the rollout of the US Affordable Care Act are challenges for NHS. The Independent reports, "A National Health Service free at the point of use will soon be "unsustainable", if the political parties do not come forward with radical plans for change before the 2015 election, top health officials have warned. Stagnant health spending combined with ever rising costs and demand mean the NHS is facing "the most challenging period in its 65-year existence", the NHS Confederation said ... In a frank assessment of the dangers faced by the health service, senior officials at the confederation say that the two years following the next general election will be pivotal in deciding whether the NHS can continue to provide free health care for all patients. "Treasury funding for the service will be at best level in real terms," they write. "Given that demand continues to rise, drugs cost more, and NHS inflation is higher than general inflation, the NHS is facing a funding gap estimated at up to £30bn by 2020."" — From The Guardian: "Our rose-tinted view of the NHS has to change". More at the Independent, Mirror, and Telegraph.

Submission + - Cost of Healthcare.gov: $634 million (digitaltrends.com)

Submitted by Saethan
Saethan writes: Healthcare.gov, the site to be used by people in 36 states to get insurance as part of the Affordable Care Act, has apparently cost the US Government $634 million. Not only is this more than Facebook spent during its first 6 years in operation, it is also over $500 million above what the original estimate was: $93.7 million. Why, in a country with some of the best web development companies in the world, has this website, which is poor quality at best, cost so much?

Submission + - 10 Yrs In Prison & 2,000 Lashes For Internet Video Of Naken Dancing On Car (huffingtonpost.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Huffington Post reports, "A Saudi man was sentenced to 2,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for dancing naked on the roof of a car and posting the video online, according to multiple reports. Three other men were also sentenced to three to seven years in jail and hundreds of lashes each for the incident, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Arabic-language paper Al-Sharq. The four men were hit with a number of charges, including "encouraging vice" and violating public morality, according to the report. The prosecutor in the case, which was heard by a judge in Saudi Arabia's conservative Al-Qassem province, reportedly objected to the sentences for being "too lenient," Gulf News notes. The video was reportedly circulated widely on the Internet, but could not be found by The Huffington Post.

Submission + - Silk Road Founder Charged With Two Counts of Assassination (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Robotron23
Robotron23 writes: Further charges have been made against Silk Road founder Ross William Ulbricht, aka 'Dread Pirate Roberts'. Yesterday saw the shutdown of Silk Road, a website Ulbricht founded which specialized in the sale of illegal items such as recreational drugs. As well as paying for a hit on a forum member, Ulbricht later requested an undercover agent murder an arrested employee of Silk Road, terming it "the right move". Upon receiving staged photos of torture and eventually the corpse, Ulbricht paid in full.

Submission + - How LucasArts Fell Apart (kotaku.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Over the last five months, I’ve talked to a dozen people connected to LucasArts, including ex-employees at the company’s highest levels, in an attempt to figure out just how the studio collapsed. Some spoke off the record; others spoke under condition of anonymity. They told me about the failed deals, the drastic shifts in direction, the cancelled projects with codenames like Smuggler and Outpost. They told me the stories behind the fantastic-looking Star Wars 1313 and the multi-tiered plans for a new Battlefront starting with the multiplayer game known as Star Wars: First Assault.

All of these people helped paint a single picture: Even before Disney purchased LucasFilm, the parent company of LucasArts, in November of 2012, the studio faced serious issues. LucasArts was a company paralyzed by dysfunction, apathy, and indecision from executives at the highest levels."

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