Month: March 2016

Andrew S. Grove was chairman of the board of Intel Corporation from May 1997 to May 2005. He was the company’s chief executive officer from 1987 to 1998 and its president from 1979 to 1997. (credit: Intel)

A survivor of the Nazi occupation of Hungary and a refugee escaping the brutal Soviet response to the Hungarian Revolution, Andrew Stephen "Andy" Grove has died at the age of 79. Grove was Intel's third employee, the first person to be hired by company founders Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. He became company president in 1979, CEO in 1987, and served as chairman of the board from 1997 to 2005.

Intel announced his death on Monday. No cause of death has been specified.

Born András István Gróf, Grove came to the US in 1957. He Americanized his name, married a fellow refugee named Eva, and earned first a bachelor's degree and then a PhD in chemical engineering. He worked for Fairchild Semiconductor, hired by and working under Gordon Moore. When Moore and Noyce left Fairchild to start Intel, Grove went with them as director of engineering.

One of Newegg's new t-shirts. (credit: Courtesy Jordan Gwyther)

A church pastor caught up in a patent battle over foam arrows is about to get assistance from the nation's best-known slayer of patent trolls, Newegg top lawyer Lee Cheng.

Newegg will donate more than $10,000 it has made from selling anti-patent-troll T-shirts to Jordan Gwyther, who owns Larping.org, a hub for the live action role-play (LARP) community. Gwyther was sued last year by Global Archery. Global Archery founder John Jackson said he's ticked off that Gwyther has tried to sell foam arrows to the camps, churches, and resorts that make up the bulk of Jackson's customers.

The Global Archery lawsuit is an attempt "to drive a passionate entrepreneur out of business," Cheng said in an e-mail to Ars. "We were absolutely appalled by Global’s attempt to impose a gag order on Mr. Gwyther."

(credit: meesh)

A former US Embassy staffer was sentenced Monday to four years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty last year to stalking, extortion, and computer fraud.

According to prosecutors, Michael C. Ford primarily conducted his sextortion activities from his desk at the United States Embassy in London despite his heavily monitored, government-owned work computer. Even though Ford ran his scheme for at least two years, the State Department’s own network security protocol apparently failed to flag the man’s behavior.

In a sentencing memorandum filed by prosecutors prior to the Monday hearing, they expressed shock at the scale of Ford's scheme. "The sheer number of phishing e-mails that Ford sent is astounding," the memorandum stated. As an example, prosecutors noted that on one day in April 2015 alone, Ford sent approximately 800 e-mails to potential victims.

The Atlas V rocket and the S.S. Rick Husband spacecraft are rolled out to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. (credit: NASA)

Like Matt Damon in The Martian, NASA is getting ready to science the @$!# out of the International Space Station. Late on Tuesday night, pending last-minute weather or technical issues, a spacecraft named for the late space shuttle Columbia commander Rick Husband will launch from Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff of the science-laden spacecraft is set for 11:05pm EDT (3:05am GMT Wednesday).

The launch of the Orbital ATK spacecraft is NASA’s second resupply mission to the International Space Station after two critical supply ship failures: an Orbital launch in late 2014, and a SpaceX flight in June 2015. After NASA’s commercial fleet was grounded for half a year, the space agency is now trying to settle into a more regular resupply schedule. The first SpaceX resupply flight since its accident is scheduled for April 8.

A variety of scientific payloads highlight Tuesday’s launch. Among its 3.5-ton cargo of food, water and other supplies, the S.S. Rick Husband will ferry 777kg of scientific experiments into space, including an upgraded version of a 3D printer, gecko-like grippers for moving around in microgravity, the first component of an ambitious Spacecraft Fire Experiment, and an experiment to that will allow scientists to better understand the behavior of regolith on asteroids and other small bodies with near-zero gravity.