Für die Berner Forscherin Kathrin Altwegg ist die geplante Kometenlandung der Sonde Rosetta ein grosser Moment. Ein von ihr entwickeltes Messgerät untersucht das Objekt aus Eis und Staub.
Tunnelgänge, U-Bahn-Schächte, Abwasserkanäle: Die chaotische Infrastruktur im Untergrund Londons fordert die Ingenieure beim Bau der Bahnlinie Crossrail vom Osten in den Westen heraus.
Der Flug auf den Erdtrabanten ist mit grossen Kosten verbunden. Wie für die Chinesen die Rechnung trotzdem aufgehen soll.
Die europäische Raumfahrtagentur will die Umgebung unseres Sonnensystems präzise Kartografieren und schoss deshalb einen Satelliten ins All. An dem Hochleistungs-Teleskop ist auch die Schweiz beteiligt.
China verweigert die Annahme von 545'000 Tonnen Mais aus den USA. Grund ist der Fund einer gentechnisch veränderten Sorte in der Lieferung.
Die Entdeckung eines erdähnlichen Planeten bringt dem Schweizer Astronomen Michel Mayor grosse Ehre. Die angesehene Fachzeitschrift «Nature» zählt ihn zu den wichtigsten Wissenschaftlern des Jahres 2013.
Der Solarflug-Pionier Bertrand Piccard hat seinen neuesten Test gestartet. Er sitzt nun im Simulator und «fliegt» ohne Pause drei Tage und drei Nächte.
Der Klimawandel hat laut einem neuen Bericht drastische Folgen für das Schweizer Mittelland. Norbert Kräuchi von der Abteilung Landschaft und Gewässer sagt, wie sich der Kanton Aargau rüstet.
Der Basler Jurist Xavier Mertz verlor 1913 bei einer Expedition zum gefrorenen Kontinent sein Leben. Im Vorfeld der waghalsigen Tour haben die Teilnehmer einige fatale Fehler gemacht.
Der Alpensteinbock ist seit seiner Wiederansiedlung in der Schweiz vitaler geworden. Wie eine Studie jetzt zeigt, profitiert die einst bei uns ausgerottete Tierart sogar vom Klimawandel.
Hitzewellen, Wassermangel und massiv höhere Gesundheitskosten: Eine Studie des Bundes untersucht, wie sich der Klimawandel auf das Gebiet des Kantons Aargau auswirkt.
Auf der ganzen Länge des Rheins wurden für viel Geld Fischtreppen gebaut. Die nützen allerdings nur in eine Richtung. Auf dem Rückweg werden die Lachse zu Tode gehäckselt.
Unter den Augen des chinesischen Präsidenten Xi Jinping sandte das Mondfahrzeug Jadehase die ersten Bilder nach China. Der Rover und die Raumsonde fotografierten sich gegenseitig.
Sechs Räder und 140 Kilogramm schwer: Wenige Stunden nach der Landung auf dem Mond rollt der chinesische Rover Jadehase über den Mond. Noch heute soll die Sonde ihre erste Mission erfüllen.
Zwar steht die Sonnenwende für dieses Jahr noch aus, der früheste Sonnenuntergang ist jedoch bereits vorbei. Generell zeigte sich die Sonne in der ersten Dezemberhälfte ungewöhnlich oft.
Nach den USA und der früheren Sowjetunion hat es nun auch China geschafft: Um 14.11 Uhr hat die Raumsonde Chang'e 3 auf dem Mond aufgesetzt. Sie soll das Mondfahrzeug «Jadehase» aussetzen.
Ein Buch über die Flughafenfeuerwehr? Wer glaubt, das sei etwa so aufregend wie die Betriebsanleitung für einen Toaster, liegt weit daneben: Die Bildergeschichten sind fast so spannend wie ein Thriller.
Now the owner of Boston Dynamics, Google rolls in to watch events at the DARPA Robotics Challenge.
Google’s decision to change the default setting for Gmail has been criticized by security researchers as opening the door to sophisticated forms of message tracking. Until recently, Gmail would ask users whether they wished to display images in an email, and for a good reason: Booby-trapped images have in the past been used to route users to external malicious content, while their use by marketers and spammers to track whether a user had opened a communication were implicit. Worse, spammers could use http image requests to verify that a random address was in use, causing even more spam to be sent to that identity. Aware of these issues, that as part of the change it will now proxy all email images, transcoding them to avoid such obvious abuses.
The downturn in the personal computer industry may be ready to reach rock bottom, where it could stabilize even as cheap tablets stay hot, an analyst said today. In a piece published earlier this week on (subscription required), Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies theorized that there are, in fact, “glimmers of hope” for the PC business. ”It appears the PC market is stabilizing in the U.S., meaning that quarterly negative growth is lessening,” Bajarin wrote. “What [the data] also shows is that tablet growth is also slowing in the U.S.” Bajarin cited numbers from industry researcher IDC and financial firm Morgan Stanley, figures which do show a flattening of the once dramatic growth gains by tablets and of the ongoing
The weight of electronic waste worldwide is expected to jump by a third to over 60 million tons annually by 2017, according to a new report. end-of-life refrigerators, TVs, mobile phones, computers, monitors, e-toys, and other products with a battery or electrical cord. The based on data compiled by “Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) Initiative” a partnership of UN organisations, industry, governments, nongovernmental, and science organizations shows that in 2012 China and the United States produced the most e-waste. While the study found that almost 48.9 million metric tons of used electrical and electronic products was produced last year an average of 15 pounds for each of the world’s seven billion people experts predict this will rise to 65.4 million tons, or the weight equivalent of almost 200 Empire State Buildings, over the next five years.
Microsoft is reminding customers that the will conk out on January 15, and it's time to shell out for the full edition. ”Now that Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 have been generally available for a while, it’s time to get all your remaining devices that are still running Windows 8.1 Preview or Windows RT 8.1 Preview to the final GA release before the Preview release expires,” Microsoft said in a short post to a last week. ”GA,” for General Availability, is a label Microsoft uses to denote the final, shipping version of a product. ”You have no right to use the software after this expiration date [of January 15, 2014],” stated the preview’s license ( ) “Starting from the expiration date, you may not be able to access any unsaved data used with the software.”
The Target security breach that left millions of debit and credit of becoming victims of fraud left experts pondering the question of how such a massive theft might have occurred. Theories varied, but the scant details released by the retailer Thursday left some experts believing the criminals had to have some inside knowledge of the company’s point-of-sale system in order to compromise it so effectively. Either people inside the organization were involved or, “at the very least, (the thieves) had sophisticated knowledge and a clear understanding of the cardholder data flows, in order to pinpoint where to steal this very specific data and then exfiltrate it,” Mark Bower, director of information protection solutions at Voltage Security, said. Target reported Thursday that card data, including customer name, credit or debit card number and the card’s expiration date and CVV code, from 40 million accounts used for shopping between November 27 and December 15. The CVV code is the three-digit security number found on the back of cards.
Microsoft is claiming a total victory—at least for this round—over the ZeroAccess bot-herders whose criminal network was the target of a joint effort among Microsoft, the FBI, Europol, and a group of security vendors. ”I am pleased to report that our disruption effort has been successful, and it appears that the criminals have abandoned their botnet,” writes Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel of Microsoft’s . Bot-herders literally signaled their abandonment with a white flag. Part of a message sent to infected computers was “WHITEFLAG” and Boscovich said the team took the message as a victory ”which we believe symbolizes that the criminals have decided to surrender control of the botnet. Since that time, we have not seen any additional attempts by the bot-herders to release new code and as a result, the botnet is currently no longer being used to commit fraud.” The company has also dropped its civil suit against the criminals (listed as John Does in court papers) in order to give law enforcement officials free rein to pursue them, Boscovich writes.
Spain’s data protection authority has fined Google $1.2 million and ordered the company to fall in line with the country’s data protection rules without delay. The Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), said Thursday that Google does not provide users enough information about the personal information it collects, and the purposes it uses it for. It also objects to Google combining data gathered from its various services in violation of local laws. The Internet company does not, for example, inform Gmail users that the content of mails and attached files are filtered to insert tailored advertising, AEPD said. Google is also said to keep the data for periods longer than permitted under local data laws. The company was fined $409,500 for each of three violations, AEPD said.
Bitcoin: What is it, really? A digital currency? An investment? An ? For many people it’s not clear, but that hasn’t stopped venture capitalists from going gaga over it. Since earlier this year, startups dealing in the technology known as Bitcoin have grabbed millions of dollars from some very prominent Silicon Valley VC firms. The amount totals at least some $50 million, all for a technology that could be gone, or pushed deep underground, if financial regulators decided to ban it. Half of that $50 million went to led by Andreessen Horowitz. Coinbase acts as a Bitcoin bank of sorts, providing a suite of services including an exchange for buying and selling bitcoins, a payment processor, and a so-called wallet service for storing bitcoins. Other startups attracting investor interest since May include after banking regulators took action.
AT&T has joined Verizon Communications in promising to report on government requests for information about its customers, setting the stage for semiannual disclosures from both the dominant U.S. wireline carriers starting early next year. The company’s announcement came just a day after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to support its removing a shareholder proposal about such disclosures from its annual proxy statement. In a statement, AT&T said it will report the total number of requests from law enforcement agencies in criminal cases; information about subpoenas, court orders and warrants; the number of AT&T customers affected; and details about legal demands that the carrier receives. The first such report will cover 2013 and will come out early next year, the company said in the statement, which was attributed to Senior Vice President and General Counsel Wayne Watts. AT&T said when governments ask for subscriber data, it works to ensure that each request is legal, and it sought to reassure consumers it doesn’t feed information directly to authorities.
LGS Innovations, a company formed during the Alcatel-Lucent merger to supply technology to the U.S. government, has been sold to a pair of U.S.-based investment companies for about $200 million. Alcatel-Lucent created LGS as part of the 2006 merger of France’s Alcatel and U.S. communications vendor Lucent Technologies. Under requirements from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the companies had to form LGS as a separate entity in order to continue doing classified work. It’s being acquired by private equity firm Madison Dearborn, based in Chicago, and holding company CoVant, based in McLean, Virginia. All of LGS’s nearly 700 employees will transition to the new ownership, the companies said. As part of Alcatel-Lucent, LGS has operated under a Special Security Agreement (SSA) meant to keep sensitive U.S. technologies out of the hands of the foreign-owned parent company. This has made it hard for the company to carry out some kinds of business, according to LGS CEO Kevin Kelly. ”The information-sharing rules are extraordinarily burdensome,” Kelly said. “Information from Alcatel could go in, but nothing could go back the other way.”
Employees of the online file storage service Megaupload discussed widespread copyright infringement on the site in internal communications released Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice. and other defendants with criminal copyright infringement and other crimes. In a May 2007 Skype conversation, according to the DOJ, Megaupload CTO Mathias Ortmann told head software developer Andrus Nomm: “I have a feeling that Kim tolerates a certain amount of copyright violation.” ”Yep, but not too obvious ones,” Nomm responded.
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, because they were all sacked out watching these festive films.
T-Mobile could start paying early-termination fees for people who switch from other carriers.
There’s a . The latest report shows a 68 percent increase in takedown requests from government agencies around the globe compared to the second half of 2012. Overall, Google says it received 3,846 requests asking for takedowns of more than 27,000 pieces of content during the first six months of 2013. Not all takedowns were successful, but the majority were. In the end, Google removed more than 18,000 pieces of content from its search index and other properties such as Blogger, Google+, and Orkut during the first half of the year. Political speech wasn’t the only reason that governments requested takedowns. For this report, the eighth since Google began publishing them in 2010, only 93 of the 3,846 requests concerned criticism of various governments, according to Google. Nevertheless, any government attempt to control political speech is a concern—especially when those censorship requests come from ostensibly democratic countries.
Another day, another batch of startups with augmented reality glasses. The latest contenders are Atheer Labs and Meta. The two startups have different approaches, but they’re both pursuing similar goals of blending the physical and digital worlds with 3D glasses. Atheer thinks of itself more as a software company, according to . It’s trying to create an Android-based platform for 3D augmented reality apps that you can control with your hands, but to get the platform rolling, Atheer decided to build its own hardware. Atheer One
Designed for Apple iMacs or Apple displays, this kit lets you sit or stand at your desk, but it comes with a case of the jiggles.