The landmark unmanned test mission blasts off to the International Space Station, but there’s still work to do. …read more Source:: CNet

Joe_NoOne (Slashdot reader #48,818) shares this update from Nature: The DNA of life on Earth naturally stores its information in just four key chemicals — guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine, commonly referred to as G, C, A and T, respectively. Now scientists have doubled this number of life’s building blocks, creating for the first time…

Steel Battalion was released for the Xbox in 2002, and remains one of the most hardcore mech simulators of all time. It became legendary for its huge twin-stick controller covered in buttons, and for deleting your save game if you failed to eject in time. It took giant robot gaming to a new level, but…

This is as close to Microsoft officially admitting it’s out of the fitness Band space as we’re likely to get. …read more Source:: ZDNet

Winnipeg’s police department used encrypted radios to stop the public from listening in to their conversations with police scanners. But did they pirate their software keys? Long-time Slashdot reader Curtman shares this report from CBC News: Winnipeg police have arrested a manager with the city for allegedly updating police radios with fraudulent software he got…

Eventually we’ll all use the superfast network, but first some issues need working out. …read more Source:: CNet

Big cloud companies are “strip-mining open-source technologies and companies,” complains Michael Howard, CEO of MariaDB. At their developer conference, Howard accused “big cloud” of “really abusing the license and privilege [of open source], by not giving back to the community.” ZDNet reports: Even as MariaDB grows by leaps and bounds in enterprise computing at Oracle’s…

A next-generation bionic hand that allows amputees to regain their proprioception is the culmination of ten years of robotics research. …read more Source:: ZDNet

One of the better retro historians out there on YouTube is the 8-Bit Guy, and after years of wanting to do something like this, it’s finally happening. The 8-Bit Guy is building his dream computer, heavily inspired by the Commodore 64. Before we go into what this computer will do and what capabilities it will…

The Audiophiliac’s deep dive into vintage audio leaves him shaken, rattled and rolled. …read more Source:: CNet