Month: March 2016

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler testifying before the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee. (credit: House Energy and Commerce Committee)

Legislation that would ban rate regulation of Internet service providers could prevent the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing net neutrality rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, according to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.

Although the FCC decided not to regulate the monthly prices charged by broadband providers, the commission's net neutrality rules rely partially on rate-oversight authority over common carriers. The relevant sections of the Communications Act say that the prices charged by common carriers have to be just and reasonable; those sections also ban "unreasonable discrimination" in charges and practices.

This rate-oversight power, along with other authority, was used by the FCC to justify the three so-called "bright-line" rules that prevent blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. That's why the Republican-sponsored "No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act" could threaten the FCC's core net neutrality rules, Wheeler told lawmakers in a letter dated March 14 and posted on the FCC's website last week.

(credit: Acer)

Chromebooks continue to be some of the more affordable laptops available, but many manufacturers are trying to make their cheapest notebooks stand out. Acer just added the Acer Chromebook 14 to its lineup, which addresses two of the bigger issues for Chrome OS users by offering 14 hours of battery life and 4GB of RAM.

First, let's talk about the Chromebook 14's design. This is Acer's first all-metal Chromebook, featuring an aluminum chassis with rounded corners that weighs just 3.42 pounds. The initial images of the Chromebook 14 show a sleek laptop but not necessarily an inspired design. One of the first Chromebooks to look like a MacBook Pro clone was the Toshiba Chromebook 2, and Acer's Chromebook 14 fits that bill as well.

Another first for Acer comes in the laptop's display: it's the company's first Chromebook to sport a 14-inch IPS screen, which is notable as most Chromebooks still suffer from lackluster displays. However, the screen is also a key factor in battery life. The Chromebook 14 is available with 1080p and 1366×768 screen options, and you'll have to get the regular 1366×768 model for the 14-hour battery life. The 1080p model should get at least 12 hours on a single charge.

Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer in 2012. Auernheimer told the New York Times he was behind a wave of racist print jobs that hit universities across the US. (credit: pinguino k)

Public networked printers at a number of universities were part of the target pool of a massive print job sent out by hacker and Internet troll Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer. At least seven universities were among those that printed out flyers laden with swastikas and a white-supremacist message.

Since Auernheimer merely sent printouts to the printers and didn't actually do anything to gain access to the printers that would fall into the realm of unauthorized access, it's unlikely that he will be prosecuted in any way. Auernheimer exploited the open nature of university networks to send print jobs to the networked printers, which in some cases were deliberately left open to the Internet to allow faculty and students to print documents remotely. These printers could easily be found with a network scan of public Internet addresses.

The New York Times reports that the flyers were printed at Princeton University, University of California-Berkeley, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Brown University, Smith College, and Mount Holyoke College, as well as others. Auernheimer took credit for the printouts in an interview with the Times, saying that he had not specifically targeted the universities but had sent the flyer print job to every publicly accessible printer in North America.

It takes sophisticated software to measure a rocket's health during a launch countdown. (credit: NASA)

During a launch countdown, rockets must be continually checked to ensure that control pumps, motors, fuel levels, and myriad other systems and subsystems are operating normally. It takes sophisticated software to oversee this, and it is this software that will often autonomously make the call to terminate a launch right up until T-minus zero.

As it builds the Space Launch System rocket, NASA is updating this Spaceport Command and Control System software for the Kennedy Space Center. However, a new report by the space agency's inspector general, Paul Martin, finds this decade-long software development effort has fallen behind schedule and is on track to exceed its initial budget of $117.3 million by 77 percent, with cost estimates now increased to $207.4 million. Moreover, the inspector general criticized NASA for not adopting cheaper, commercially available launch software already used by Orbital ATK and SpaceX to launch their rockets.

To develop its new launch software, NASA has essentially kluged together a bunch of different software packages, Martin noted in his report. "The root of these issues largely results from NASA’s implementation of its June 2006 decision to integrate multiple products or, in some cases, parts of products rather than developing software in-house or buying an off-the-shelf product," the report states. "Writing computer code to 'glue' together disparate products has turned out to be more complex and expensive than anticipated. As of January 2016, Agency personnel had developed 2.5 million lines of 'glue-ware,' with almost two more years of development activity planned."

(credit: Xiaomi)

Xiaomi is expanding its horizons, looking beyond cheap yet surprisingly good smartphones and affordable fitness trackers to target the Internet of Things space. The Chinese company announced the Mi Induction Heating Pressure Rice Cooker as the first device in its new "Mi Ecosystem" sub-brand.

The rice cooker is strategic first product. There's no doubt that rice cookers are already crucial kitchen products for many, but according to some reports, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun wanted to create a Chinese-made rice cooker that could stand up against the more advanced (and expensive) Japanese devices from the likes of Toshiba and Tiger. Enter Xiaomi's smartphone-connected rice cooker, which not only cooks rice via pressure and induction heating but is also much cheaper than its Japanese competitors at 999 yuan (about $150).

Another thing to note is that, like Xiaomi's smartphones, the smart rice cooker features a pleasantly minimalist design which will certainly add to its appeal. In addition to using pressure cooking technology, it comes with a gray cast-iron inner pot which will help the rice cook evenly. Users will be able to scan the barcode on their rice bags so the device can best cook the rice according to brand, type, and origin. The app can currently  identify 200 brands, of rice and that library will be expanded in the future.