McGruber writes “According to documents seen by Germany’s Der Spiegel, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) successfully cracked the encryption code protecting the United Nations’ internal videoconferencing system. NSA first breached the UN system in the summer of 2012 and, within three weeks of initially gaining access to the UN system, the NSA had increased…

Ninety years ago, a handful of aviators tried out a novel idea: running a gasoline hose from one biplane to another. Higher-tech adaptations of that maneuver keep 21st century aircraft going and going and………

Last year I was invited to watch a group of crack Gran Turismo players fight for a chance to get their foot in the motorsport door. This is what happened…….

Apache HBase versions prior to 0.92.3 and 0.94.9 suffer from a man in the middle vulnerability…….

The Auralic Taurus MKII is a gorgeous, ultrahigh-end headphone amplifier, and the Audiophiliac thinks it might be the best of its kind…….

An anonymous reader writes “There is a growing interest in who tracks us, and many folks are restricting the use of web cookies and Flash to cut down how advertisers (and others) can track them. Those things are fine as far as they go, but some sites are using the ETag header as an identifier:…

poofmeisterp writes “It’s about time. Windows 8.1 will be released to end users in October, and RTM is being released now: ‘Windows 8.1, codenamed “Blue,” is introducing a number of changes designed to make the new operating system more palatable to current Windows users. Windows 8.1 is adding a Start Button, a boot-straight-to-desktop option; the…

A long-term plan created by 14 cooperating space agencies around the world could mean that a Canadian astronaut may get to visit the moon sometime close to 2030. The International Space Exploration Coordination Group, of which Canada is a part, released last week an updated roadmap laying out intended projects, including a lunar visit. “[CSA…

Google has captured lots of attention with its municipal fiber efforts in Kansas City and Austin; Amazon, say some anonymous sources, is experimenting with a networking project of its own (distinct from its Whispernet 3G content delivery service) to connect users’ devices to the internet. Rather than fiber, though, Amazon’s tests involve spectrum controlled by…

Daniel_Stuckey writes “A NASA veteran, aerospace entrepreneur, and space-based solar power (SBSP) expert, [John] Mankins designed the world’s first practical orbital solar plant. It’s called the Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large PHased Array, or SPS-ALPHA for short. If all goes to plan, it could be launched as early as 2025, which is sooner than…