Online courses’ metadata helps NCAA catch cheating coaches red-handed

Head coach sent grad students all over the country to complete online coursework.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recently handed down one of the strictest penalties it has ever levied on Donnie Tyndall, the head coach of the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) men’s basketball team. The athletic group says Tyndall organized a cheating ring to help recruits satisfy academic standards, even flying graduate student assistants to the recruits’ homes to complete their online coursework.

The NCAA slapped Tyndall with a 10-year show-cause order, which effectively prevents him from working in the NCAA for that time period, according to the Washington Post. That's the longest show-cause order the NCAA has ever handed out and its length is likely due to the fact that Tyndall and several of his colleagues denied their involvement to the NCAA until the organization's enforcement staff discovered oddities in the metadata from the online coursework, tipping them off to a coverup.

In a Public Infractions Decision (PDF) released on Friday, the NCAA said that Tyndall began finding ways to help students cheat only six weeks after starting as head coach at USM. Ultimately, Tyndall, two assistant coaches, and two graduate student assistant managers helped seven prospective players cheat on online classes. "A majority of the prospects used the credits to attain immediate eligibility for competition upon their transfer to the institution,” the decision stated.

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Without NASA there would be no SpaceX and its brilliant boat landing

Just before Christmas, in 2008, the space agency saved Musk’s company.

NASA's Kirk Shireman, left, was content to watch as Elon Musk handled all the questions after the dramatic Falcon 9 rocket landing. (credit: NASA)

One almost had to feel sorry for Kirk Shireman on Friday night. The affable, able manager of the International Space Station sat next to Elon Musk during a news conference after a Falcon 9 rocket had just delivered a cargo-supply ship to orbit and then made a stunning landing back on a robotic barge. For most of an hour he waited, patient and silent. Only at the very end of the briefing did a single, solitary question come Shireman's way.

A three-decade veteran of NASA who played pivotal roles in both the shuttle and space station programs, Shireman might have been thinking this: Hey, what about us? NASA is the one with the $100-billion orbiting laboratory where humans have now lived in space for 15 years. While no one anticipated it when NASA and Russia began building the space station 20 years ago, one of its most important functions has become enabling commercial activity in space. With the station, NASA created a market for companies like SpaceX to deliver supplies and, as early as next year, astronauts into space.

Friday afternoon's launch offered a spectacular display of this commercial aspect. As its largest payload, the SpaceX Dragon delivered Bigelow Aerospace's expandable habitat to the station. By connecting this inflatable room to the station later this month, Bigelow can gain invaluable testing experience, including in situ monitoring by astronauts next door. They may also prove to NASA that the technology is safe and perhaps lead to larger habitats for use near the Moon or deeper into space.

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HTC 10 leaks (again) ahead of April 12th launch

HTC 10 leaks (again) ahead of April 12th launch

HTC’s next flagship smartphone is coming, and to be honest, there’s not much mystery left. HTC has been releasing tiny bits of info ahead of the April 12th launch event… but most of the phone’s specs and design elements were leaked weeks ago. More details leaked this weekend, and now a promotional video for the upcoming phone […]

HTC 10 leaks (again) ahead of April 12th launch is a post from: Liliputing

HTC 10 leaks (again) ahead of April 12th launch

HTC’s next flagship smartphone is coming, and to be honest, there’s not much mystery left. HTC has been releasing tiny bits of info ahead of the April 12th launch event… but most of the phone’s specs and design elements were leaked weeks ago. More details leaked this weekend, and now a promotional video for the upcoming phone […]

HTC 10 leaks (again) ahead of April 12th launch is a post from: Liliputing

Erneuerbare Energien: Solarzellen wandeln Regen in Strom

Strom aus Solarzellen bei Regen? Klingt paradox, ist aber möglich. Haben chinesische Forscher herausgefunden. Eine Beschichtung macht aus der Solar- eine Regenzelle. (Solarenergie, Technologie)

Strom aus Solarzellen bei Regen? Klingt paradox, ist aber möglich. Haben chinesische Forscher herausgefunden. Eine Beschichtung macht aus der Solar- eine Regenzelle. (Solarenergie, Technologie)

Security: Petya Ransomware geknackt

Wessen Computer mit der Ransomware Petya infiziert ist, kann seine Dateien möglicherweise retten. Ein neues Tool erfordert etwas Handarbeit, kann die Dateien aber wieder herstellen. (Ransomware, Linux-Kernel)

Wessen Computer mit der Ransomware Petya infiziert ist, kann seine Dateien möglicherweise retten. Ein neues Tool erfordert etwas Handarbeit, kann die Dateien aber wieder herstellen. (Ransomware, Linux-Kernel)

GCHQ wizards helped prevent Harry Potter book from leaking online

Harry Potter had friends in high places, according to the book’s publisher.

Back in 2005, the fate of Harry Potter was important enough that GCHQ reportedly stepped in to stop a potential leak of the sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

In a radio interview last week, Nigel Newton of Bloomsbury Publishing spoke about how the publisher had employed strong security measures to prevent possible leaks, including guard dogs and a constant security presence at the printing press. Seemingly, the company also had the support of GCHQ, the UK's primary signals intelligence and surveillance agency.

"We fortunately had many allies," Newton said. "GCHQ rang me up and said, 'We've detected an early copy of this book on the Internet.'"

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A preview of features for the ‘Barcelona’ release

Join us for a short overview of what the next Flightgear release within the new automated three-month release cycle will bring!

FG goes to Spain

The most visible change to first-time users will be the change of the default airport. For the future, we plan to name every release after the default airport, and thus while the last release has been ‘San Francisco’ (or 2016.1), the next release (2016.2) will go to the beautiful city of Barcelona. Look forward to some impressive scenery and all-new VRF tutorials and suggested flights in the region!

Improvements to scenery

Improvements to scenery rendering …
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Join us for a short overview of what the next Flightgear release within the new automated three-month release cycle will bring!

FG goes to Spain

The most visible change to first-time users will be the change of the default airport. For the future, we plan to name every release after the default airport, and thus while the last release has been ‘San Francisco’ (or 2016.1), the next release (2016.2) will go to the beautiful city of Barcelona. Look forward to some impressive scenery and all-new VRF tutorials and suggested flights in the region!

Improvements to scenery

Improvements to scenery rendering are being added on all fronts. Supported by shader developments within the Atmospheric Light Scattering (ALS) framework, runways and airport keep can now be rendered in multiple ways in high resolution, and this has been implemented for different regions all across the world – including the new default airport of Barcelona ‘El Prat’.

Places across the world continue to be populated with 3d models, for instance check out the progress on London Heathrow!

See the FG world through an infrared camera

ALS now includes a whole suite of filtering techniques, which allow to select brightness and gamma-correction in-sim (i.e. affecting screen pixel color values visible in screenshots, not only the appearance on the monitor). Part of this filter suite is also a night vision mode and, possibly most exciting, and infrared camera mode. The IR vision shows contrasts based on relative temperatures, with the daily temperature cycles of the environment modeled by the weather system.

New and improved aircraft

The Piper J3 Cub, a long-time resident of the aircraft repository, has now been fitted with a brand-new JSBSim FDM as well as support for high-end effects, including interior shadow mapping. Water takeoff and landing by selecting floats rather than wheels is also being developerd.

The Boeing 757 has been updated with new versions and winglets dependent on selected airline livery. The Extra 500 received multiple upgrades and now includes a simulation of icing effects and a sophisticated failure system.

Behind the scenes changes

Multiple less visible changes have also been introduced:

* the handling of shared scenery models has now been much streamlined – shared models now reside in a single location and are most easily obtained and updated via the in-sim terrasync option. Alternatively a (daily updated) collection can be obtained here.

* FG now supports the generation and application of GPU specific rendering setting profiles. The idea is to make the experience for first-time users more pleasant by pre-setting the rendering quality level to something which leads to a good experience for the selected graphics card.

* Currently, support for pre-defining aircraft states (such as ‘cold and dark’ or ‘in air’ or ‘cruise’) is formalized and introduced, with the aim of routinely allowing in-air initialization of complex aircraft with all systems set correctly.

Stay tuned as we fly towards our next release!

The Ars VR headset showdown—Oculus Rift vs. HTC Vive

Our tale of the tape comparison makes a first-generation recommendation.

Two headsets enter, one leaves with our current recommendation. (credit: Kyle Orland)

In our original reviews of the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, we tried very hard to examine these virtual reality systems on their own merits without constant comparisons to the competition. But no product exists in a vacuum. After years of buildup, we’re now faced with two competitive, PC-tethered VR headsets hitting the market right next to each other. Unless you have a spare $1,400 to spend to buy both headsets (or more, if you need to outfit a gaming PC too), you’ll have to pick one or the other if you want virtual reality in your home as soon as possible.

Today, we’ll lay out the major pros and cons of both Oculus and HTC’s VR systems as we see them in order to (hopefully) guide you to the headset that’s right for you. If you’re just planning on scrolling to the bottom for our final verdict, though, here’s a spoiler—we’re not entirely sure you should buy either one just yet.

Headset specs
Oculus Rift HTC Vive
Headset weight 470 grams (~1 lbs) 555 grams (~1.2 lbs) without cables
Display 2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye) OLED panels 2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye) AMOLED panels
Refresh rate 90 Hz 90 Hz
Field of view 110 degrees 110 degrees
Lens spacing 58-72mm (adjustable) 60.2-74.5mm (adjustable)
Packaged Controllers Xbox One gamepad and Oculus Remote Two wireless motion-tracked controllers with rechargeable 960mAh batteries
Tracking 3-axis gyroscope, accelerometer, and external "Constellation" IR camera tracking system SteamVR 1.0 tracking system with two "Lighthouse" IR laser tracking boxes (up to 5m diagonal tracking volume)
Audio Integrated over-ear headphones with 3D directional audio support and built-in microphone Audio extension dongle to plug generic headphones to headset. Built-in microphone
PC connection 4m custom cable (integrates HDMI and USB connections) Three-part multi-cable (HDMI, USB, and power) with junction box for PC connection.
Included games Lucky's Tale (and Eve Valkyrie with pre-order) Job Simulator, Fantastic Contraption and Tilt Brush
Price $600 $800
Recommended PC specs
Oculus Rift HTC Vive
GPU NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU Intel i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 equivalent or greater
RAM 8GB 4GB
OS Windows 7 SP1 or newer Windows 7 SP1 or newer
Inputs 3 USB 3.0 ports (for headset, tracking camera, wireless controller dongle), one HDMI 1.3 port 1x HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2; 1x USB 2.0
Other At least 1.5m x 2m of open space for "room-scale" experiences.

Visual similarities

On a pure baseline of technical specs, there’s remarkably little difference in the Rift and Vive. Both sport two 1080x1200 pixel OLED displays (one for each eye) that provide an utterly convincing 3D effect. Both headsets have 90 Hz refresh rates, low-persistence pixel switching, and accurate, low latency head-tracking that quickly updates your apparent VR view as you move and tilt your head in space.

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Mobilfunkprovider: Vodafones freies LTE und EU-Roaming nicht für Discounter

Wer bei Mobilfunkprovidern das Netz von Vodafone nutzt, hat nichts von den angekündigten Änderungen bei LTE und EU-Roaming. Das wurde jetzt bestätigt. Auch bei der Telekom fallen die EU-Roaming-Gebühren weg. (Roaming, Vodafone)

Wer bei Mobilfunkprovidern das Netz von Vodafone nutzt, hat nichts von den angekündigten Änderungen bei LTE und EU-Roaming. Das wurde jetzt bestätigt. Auch bei der Telekom fallen die EU-Roaming-Gebühren weg. (Roaming, Vodafone)