The Japanese space agency has released more details about the hacking of their computers.
A congressional report today revealed that two American climate satellites were attacked by hackers in the past four years.
In October 2007 and July 2008, a NASA-managed Landsat-7 satellite experienced 12 or more minutes of interference, and a Terra AM-1 satellite was disrupted for two minutes in June 2008 and again that October for nine minutes, according to Bloomberg Businessweek’s analysis of the annual report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The report says the hackers gained access to the satellites — both are used for Earth climate and terrain monitoring — through the Svalbard Satellite Station in Spitsbergen, Norway. It’s believed the attackers may have hijacked the Internet connection at the Norway ground station to interfere with the operation of the satellites.
Steve Jobs has passed away.
Proposed changes in computer hardware specifications may make it impossible to run free operating systems such as Linux.
The extension of Microsoft’s OS monopoly to hardware would be a disaster, with increased lock-in, decreased consumer choice and lack of space to innovate.
The article also notes how these restrictions might violate European Union competition law.
Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle.
Want to known how much a galaxy weighs? There is now an Android smartphone application, GalMass, for calculating it!
Another anniversary: Thirty years ago today IBM introduced its first PC.
Battle of the browsers: Internet Explorer continues to lose market share to Chrome, Firefox, and others.
A computer chess program has been stripped of its four titles and its programmer banned because of accusations of plagiarism.
A “dirty hack” has restored the Cluster solar wind mission from near loss.
A massive Windows botnet is “almost indestructible,” say researchers.
Lockheed Martin buys the first commercial quantum computer. More here on the science of quantum computing.
Quantum computers could revolutionize the way we tackle problems that stump even the best classical computers, which store and process their data as ‘bits’ — essentially a series of switches that can be either on or off. The power of quantum bits — or qubits — is that they can be on and off simultaneously. Connect enough qubits together using quantum entanglement and a computer should be able to zip through a multitude of calculations in parallel, at astonishing speed.
Netflix now consumes 29.7 percent of the peak internet traffic in North America.
Websites run by NASA, JPL, and Stanford University were hacked by search engine scammers today.
Technology marches on: The last typewriter factory in the world has shut down.
Virtual meets reality: Watch Discovery’s launch today from your virtual yacht on your Playstation 3 game machine.
‘Watson’ the computer creams human ‘Jeopardy!’ champs. Key quote:
“I for one welcome our new computer overlords,” contestant Ken Jennings — who holds the “Jeopardy!” record of 74 straight wins — cheekily wrote on his answer screen at the conclusion of the much-hyped three-day showdown.
The computer has crushed the human champions in the second of three rounds of “Jeopardy!”
It’s a tie after the first round of Jeopardy!’s computer vs human competition.
A computer is going to take on two Jeopardy! champs for $1 million. Two comments from this story:
The computer was finally defeated when it said “Windows has finished updating your computer. Rebooting in 14 seconds.”
and
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”
This is the kind of change I like: Firefox has become the number one browser in Europe, beating out Internet Explorer.
Why I use Linux: Hilarious Windows error messages. This is typical:
Windows has detected that you have moved your mouse. Please restart your computer.
