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With an instantaneous launch window that opens and closes at 4:43pm ET (9:43pm BST) today, SpaceX will attempt to send its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft soaring into space.

While there is some intriguing cargo aboard the Dragon spacecraft, notably the expandable Bigelow habitation module, most of today's suspense will come after launch when SpaceX attempts to land its first stage booster on a drone ship off the Florida coast.

According to today's flight profile, the first stage main engines will cutoff at 2 minutes, 30 seconds after launch. The main engines will separate about 4 seconds later, and the first stage boostback burn will begin 4 minutes after launch. The landing burn should occur at 8 minutes, followed by an experimental landing attempt at around 10 minutes.

I'm in ur Printrbot bed, sniffin ur noises. (credit: Lee Hutchinson)

Let's say the manufacturer up the street is making widgets with a 3D printer and you'd like to get in on that action. If you want to clone those coveted 3D objects, all you need is an audio recorder in the room with the printer. Using just the noises emitted by the printer's stepper motors, you have up to a 92 percent chance of perfectly replicating the object. According to a new paper published in Science, researchers have even replicated a key using this technique.

A group of "cyber-physical systems researchers" will present the hack next week at a conference devoted to cyber-physical systems in Vienna. It's the next frontier in IP piracy, which could conceivably lead to a future Pirate Bay full of files that describe everything from the latest mobile device parts to human bones for transplant.

Mara Hvistendahl reports in Science that the researchers used a consumer grade Printrbot to make three objects: a tiny square, a tiny triangle, and a standard-sized key. She continues:

(credit: Ruben Molina)

Apple said Friday that it won't go to court to demand the Federal Bureau of Investigation to inform the gadget maker how the feds broke into the phone of Syed Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in a San Bernardino County office building in December.

An Apple attorney, who asked that he not be identified by name, told reporters in a conference call that Apple did not know how the authorities unlocked the 5C running iOS 9. The Apple attorney asked that he be paraphrased and not quoted directly, but he suspected that the hack won't last long as Apple continues to fortify its security.

Apple said it was unclear whether the FBI employed a software or hardware hack, and the company did not understand why it would only work on a 5C, as the government said. The Apple lawyer said the government has not come forward to Apple to explain the workaround.

(credit: Sergio Ruiz)

A deal between Lyft and lawyers representing some drivers, in which the ride-hailing app would pay $12.25 million to end a lawsuit, has been thrown out by the federal judge overseeing the case.

In a 21-page order (PDF), US District Judge Vince Chhabria says that the $12.25 million payment seriously shortchanges the proposed class of drivers—and the state of California. Plaintiffs' lawyers said the $12.25 million was a reasonable cut for the $64 million that drivers deserved for mileage reimbursements they would have received as employees. But Chhabria's calculation of that reimbursement, using the drivers' own methodology, was that it's worth more than $126 million.

"The drivers were therefore shortchanged by half on their reimbursement claim alone," he concludes.

The website of Total Call Mobile, which is accused of defrauding the Lifeline program. (credit: Total Call Mobile)

The Federal Communications Commission is planning to collect a $51.1 million fine from a phone company accused of using “widespread enrollment fraud” to collect improper payments from a program designed to help poor people.

Since 2014, Total Call Mobile (TCM) has requested and received $9.7 million in payments by signing up tens of thousands of duplicate or ineligible consumers “despite repeated and explicit warnings from its own employees, in some cases compliance specialists, that company sales agents were engaged in widespread enrollment fraud,” the FCC said in an announcement yesterday.

The alleged fraud targeted the Lifeline program, which provides discounted phone service to people with low incomes. Lifeline, part of the Universal Service Fund, is paid for by US residents through surcharges on phone bills.