Siemens really thought that when it brought its sweet looking classic 1965 Mustang to the Goodwood Hill Climb that it would fly up the hill and do autonomous cars proud. It ended up driving up the hill in spectacularly poor fashion. At least the Mustang looked good sitting on the starting line.
The autonomous Mustang had very little in
Source: Hot Hardware – Siemens Autonomous Mustang Drives Up Famed Goodwood Hill Like A Drunk Grandpa
A study by eggheads at Oxford Internet Institute has confirmed what most of us already know. Porn filters just aren’t effective in preventing children form viewing pr0n on the internet. Parents out there need to realize the only way to prevent them from viewing pr0n is to supervise them when they are online. The moral of the story is don’t expect some internet filter to be your baby sitter. Read the paper here.
In total, their study looked at 9,352 male and 9,357 female subjects from Europe and found that while almost 50% of the subjects had porn filter software running on their devices, the subjects still saw approximately the same amount of porn as people who browsed the web with no porn filters on their devices.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Parents, Your Porn Filters Don’t Keep Your Kids Away From Porn
Toshiba was the first maker of hard drives to announce a PMR-based 14 TB HDD last December and apparently it is the first company to start their commercial shipments. As of this week, Supermicro has qualified Toshiba’s MG07-series HDDs with 12 TB and 14 TB capacities for use on select storage server platforms and is now offering the appropriate systems to customers. In addition to servers, the drives will be available from Supermicro’s online store eventually.
Toshiba’a MG07 enterprise-grade helium-filled HDDs featuring 14 TB and 12 TB capacities rely on nine and eight PMR platters respectively from Showa Denko, with ~1.56 TB capacity per platter. The drives feature a 7200 RPM spindle speed, a 256 MB cache buffer, and a SATA 6 Gbps interface, which is in line with other HDDs for nearline storage applications. Power consumption of Toshiba’s 14 TB hard drive does not exceed 7.6 W, so it is drop-in compatible with virtually all backplanes and servers, but makers of such equipment still need to qualify the drives with their products to ensure their fine operation. Just like other enterprise-grade HDDs, Toshiba’s 12 TB and 14 TB offerings feature enhancements to improve their durability and reliability, including top and bottom attached motors, RVFF, environmental sensor, and so on.
Supermicro has qualified Toshiba’s MG07-series drives with a number of its SuperStorage (SSG) systems, including its top-of-the-range SSG-6049P-E1CR45H/SSG-6049P-E1CR45L 4U machines based on two Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 56 cores in total and supporting up to 45 hot-swap 3.5-inch HDDs and up to six NVMe SSDs (connected to PCIe lanes). When fully populated with Toshiba’s 14 TB hard drives, such servers can store 630 TB of data on HDDs and terabytes more on flash drives. Customers interested in maximum HDD storage density can now order SuperStorage machines equipped with Toshiba’s 14 TB HDDs from Supermicro.
| Brief Specifications of Toshiba’s MG07ACA HDDs | |||||
| Capacity | 14 TB | 12 TB | |||
| P/N | 4K Native | MG07ACA14TA | MG07ACA12TA | ||
| 512e | MG07ACA14TE | MG07ACA12TE | |||
| Platters | 9 | 8 | |||
| Heads | 18 | 16 | |||
| Recording Technology | Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) / Conventional | ||||
| RPM | 7200 RPM | ||||
| Interface | SATA 6 Gbps | ||||
| DRAM Cache | 256 MB | ||||
| Persistent Write Cache | Yes | ||||
| Helium-Filling | Yes | ||||
| Sequential Data Transfer Rate (host to/from drive) | 260 MB/s | ~250 MB/s | |||
| MTBF | 2.5 million | ||||
| Rated Annual Workload | 550 TB | ||||
| Acoustics (Seek) | unknown | ||||
| Power Consumption | Random read/write | 7.6 W | ? W | ||
| Idle | 4.6 W | ? W | |||
| Warranty | 5 Years | ||||
Toshiba’s MG07-series hard drives are rated for 550 TB average annualized workloads, 2.5 million hours MTBF, and are covered with a five-year warranty. With this level of reliability, it is not surprising that the drives are rather expensive. German retailer sysGen.de charges €619 w/VAT ($725) for a 14 TB version and at press time was the only company in the world to offer this HDD (this does not mean it has the drives in stock). Meanwhile, per-drive prices from Supermicro will depend on volumes and other factors.
Source: AnandTech – Toshiba’s 14 TB HDDs Now Available from Supermicro
Security conscious computer users might wonder if we will ever fully put Spectre vulnerabilities behind us. Researchers were still discovering new vulnerabilities related to Spectre early this year. Intel is working to protect users from the vulnerability and only a few days ago it announced a patch for side-challenge exploits for some of
Source: Hot Hardware – Google Chrome Spectre Mitigations Force Browser To Gobble Even More Memory
Update: After we posted this deal, Amazon posted another discount on the casual Spikeball set, now just $48. The $70 tournament kit includes a $40 registration to an official competitive tournament, better balls, and stronger legs, but the $48 model is probably fine for most players.
Source: Gizmodo – Get Your Very Own Spikeball Set For Off
The Speculative Load Hardening (SLH) effort that has been in development for months as a compiler-based automated Spectre Variant One mitigation technique has landed within LLVM trunk…
Source: Phoronix – Speculative Load Hardening Lands In LLVM For Spectre V1 Mitigation
Our readers voted Anker’s SoundBuds Slims as their favorite affordable Bluetooth headphones, but we may need a recount, as Anker recently released the upgraded SoundBuds Slim+, on sale for just $20 today, for Prime members only.
Source: Gizmodo – Anker Upgraded Our Readers’ Favorite Bluetooth Earbuds, and They’re Just Today
Although it’s well known that there aren’t many Blockbuster stores left open, the announced closure of Alaska’s remaining two outlets is a deathblow. Kevin Daymude, the General Manager of Blockbuster Alaska confirmed via a Facebook post that rental o…
Source: Engadget – Blockbuster is one store away from extinction in the US
Using artificial intelligence, it’s now possible to map out previously unknown relationships between molecular structure and chemical toxicity.
Source: TreeHugger – This computer program could make animal testing obsolete
The end of the academic year is here, and we are marking the occasion by celebrating teachers from all over the world.
For those about to teach, we salute you.
Since last September, we’ve run a whole host of programmes that teachers have been involved in. From training with us at Picademy to building apocalyptic projects for Pioneers, from running Code Clubs, Dojos, and Raspberry Jams to learning tea-making algorithms on our free online training courses, these brilliant people do amazing things on a daily basis. And even more amazingly, they somehow also have the energy to take their knowledge into schools and share it with their learners to get them excited about computing too.
Dr Sue Sentance, the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s new Chief Learning Officer, has trained teachers for many years and understands better than most the impact a good teacher can have:
“When thinking about teaching Computing, we often get so caught up in the technology — what software, what kit, what environment, etc. — that we forget that it’s the teachers who actually facilitate students’ learning and inspire and motivate the students. A passionate and enthusiastic teacher is more important than which device or tool the students are using, because they understand what will help their students. “
In celebration of our education community, we asked teachers around the world to answer one big question:
“What has been your computing highlight of the year?”
Caroline (top right) and her group of students at Spark Penketh
Caroline Keep won the TES New Teacher of the Year award and runs Spark Penketh, a school makerspace in Warrington. She will also be training with us in August to become a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator. Her highlight of the year was achieving success at the forefront of the UK’s makerspace movement:
“All the physical computing projects we’ve done since February when Raspberry Pi co-founder Pete Lomas opened our school makerspace (the first one in a UK state school) have been amazing! We’ve built and coded talking robots, and gesture-controlled ones on micro:bits with primary schools. We’ve built drones, coded Arduinos for European Maker Week, opened a RoboDojo, used Python and Node-RED on Raspberry Pi to control weather stations, Pi Camera Modules, and robots, and we’ve designed a Digital Creative pathway for Industry 4.0 skills for September. Next up are Google AIY Projects kits, Redfern Electronic’s Crumble, and Bare Conductive’s Touch Board. We can’t wait!”
Heidi (left) and two other amazing US-based educators pose under a very apt sign. It’s like they planned it.
Heidi Baynes is an Education Coordinator for the County Office of Education in Riverside, California. Her highlight is a birthday party with a difference:
“The Riverside Raspberry Jam was held on 3 March 2018 as part of Raspberry Pi’s Big Birthday celebration. Fellow Picademy graduate Ari Flewelling and I planned the event in conjunction with Vocademy, and we were thrilled by the overwhelming support from the local community. The event featured a project showcase, workshops, and an introduction to all things Raspberry Pi. We can’t wait to start planning the 2019 Riverside Raspberry Jam! I was also particularly proud of the students from Mountain Heights Academy who shared their Raspberry Pi and micro:bit projects at the Consortium’s #CSforAll event in Riverside. Our student Hailey was able to share her experiences as part of a student panel and even had the opportunity to meet the CEO of code.org, Hadi Partovi!”
Amy Bloodworth and her Astro Pi–winning students
Amy Bloodworth is a teacher at The American School In Switzerland (TASIS) in Lugano, Switzerland. Her highlight is literally out of this world:
“It has been a busy year for us here in Switzerland. Highlights for me and my students include meeting a computer game designer, competing in the World Robot Olympiad, and participating in the Astro Pi Challenge. With Astro Pi, my students loved that they could send their coded message to the ISS astronauts in any of the languages of ESA. As we are an international school, so this helped the students feel more connected to the task. The Astro Pi Challenge hooked the students in and acted as a springboard for other activities, such as coding an ISS tracker that alerted them when the ISS was overhead, and other science experiments using the Sense HAT. Next year, I plan to start a new after-school club dedicated to competitive robotics.”
Janice Paterson’s lovely class of brain-eating zombies
Janice Paterson is the Principal Teacher at Wormit Primary in Fife, Scotland. Her highlight wouldn’t seem out of place in The Walking Dead:
“We loved the amazing open-ended challenge of a zombie apocalypse, courtesy of Raspberry Pi’s Pioneers programme. It was truly cross-curricular and completely immersive for all the young learners. The books were devoured for information/ideas, and the makeup kits inspired our imaginations and creative side. We had Pi-powered, zombie-detecting robots coded to offer assorted challenges, and micro:bits set up as zombie teacher detectors (their thermometers were used because, of course, teachers have hot bodies!). We all learned loads! The best bit was sharing it all with the rest of our Code Club and the whole school.”
Our Code Club resources translated into Polish
Wojtek Zielinski works in Poland as a teacher. His highlight was a breakthrough he had when working with the translated versions of our resources with his students:
“When children work with resources in English, they often end up following what’s in the pictures. They don’t understand why the game or the program they created works. Translated materials enable them to truly learn and understand programming concepts, and that empowers them to experiment and create more. Translations are therefore essential for learning.”
We are so grateful for everything our teachers do to help us make our programmes a success. Together we’ll be able to achieve our goal of making high-quality computing resources that are accessible to everyone!
As a quick aside, you might also be interested to read a recent article written by Raspberry Pi creator and co-founder Eben Upton about the positive impact his teachers had on him.
Whether you’re a teacher wanting to share your success, or you simply want to share your appreciation for the teachers who inspired you, tell us about it in the comments below.
And from everyone at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, there’s only one thing left to say…
Teachers, we salute you!
The post Celebrating our teachers appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Source: Raspberry Pi – Celebrating our teachers
Enlarge / We need your help to produce a new newsletter to chronicle the dynamic launch industry. (credit: Aurich Lawson/background image United Launch Alliance)
Welcome to Edition 1.08 of the Rocket Report! This week there is no shortage of news about SpaceX, as well as the race to become the first nation (or company) to build the first super-booster since the Saturn V rocket. Also, a company plans to launch 300km north of the Arctic Circle.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below. Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Virgin Galactic signs deal to launch from Italy. Virgin Galactic and a pair of Italian companies have signed a framework agreement aimed at bringing Virgin Galactic’s suborbital space tourism launcher to a future spaceport in Italy. The spaceplane would be based at Taranto-Grottaglie Airport, which Italian public-private partners aim to turn into a spaceport. The spaceport could become active as early as 2020, GeekWire reports.
Read 28 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Rocket Report: Virgin goes Italian, SpaceX’s giant net, a nuclear launcher
Hamilton County sends more prisoners to death row than any other county in Ohio. And the prosecutor there is fed up with complaints from human rights activists about lethal injection being inhumane. Joe Deters, the county prosecutor, told a local TV station that Ohio needs to bring back firing squads.
Source: Gizmodo – Prosecutor Calls For Firing Squads Because Execution is ‘Not Supposed to be a Pleasant Experience’
Two ingredients and no heat required.
Source: TreeHugger – The truly easiest tomato sauce is no-cook and delicious
It turns out leaving the EU is quite hard. Who knew?
Source: TreeHugger – Hard Brexit: Northern Ireland may need thousands of generator barges to keep the lights on
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.
Morning there! Netflix claims a bunch of Emmy nominations, Apple snuck out a powerful new MacBook Pro, and Nintendo’s Switch gets an old-school RPG many were waiting for.
Source: Engadget – The Morning After: Apple’s MacBook Pro upgrade
Hear me out…
Source: TreeHugger – I don’t believe in climate change
Blue Origin still has to launch its first manned flight before it can start taking people to suborbital space. But if you’re wondering how much money to save for a trip, the answer could be at least 200 grand. According to Reuters, employees “with fi…
Source: Engadget – Blue Origin’s suborbital flights might cost 0,000 per ticket
A German court ruled Thursday that Facebook content can be passed onto heirs like letters, books, or diaries. The ruling comes after the parents of a teenager who died in 2012 after being hit by a train argued Facebook should allow them to access her account, including her private messages, to determine whether she committed suicide. “This would also help determine whether the driver of the train should be entitled to compensation,” notes Quartz. From the report: Currently, Facebook’s policy is to “memorialize” an account when the site is informed of someone’s death. If a user has a “legacy contact” (here are instructions on how to set one up), Facebook grants them limited access to the user’s account, allowing them change the user’s profile picture, accept friend requests, or pin posts to the top of the user’s profile. They can also ask the platform to delete the account. Recently, Facebook told Quartz, the company revised its policy to allow parents or guardians of minors to become legacy contacts after their child has died. In rare cases, the company says, authorized people, like family members, can request information from a deceased person’s account, if they have a court order. But there’s no guarantee they will get what they need.
A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement the company disagreed with the German ruling: “These questions — how to weigh the wishes of the relatives and protect the privacy of third parties — are some of the toughest we’ve confronted. We empathize with the family. At the same time, Facebook accounts are used for a personal exchange between individuals which we have a duty to protect. While we respectfully disagree with today’s decision by [the court], the lengthy process shows how complex the issue under discussion is. We will be analyzing the judgment to assess its full implications.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – You Can Inherit Facebook Content Like a Letter or Diary, German Court Rules
Our photo of the day comes from San Luis Obispo County, California.
Source: TreeHugger – Photo: Black oystercatchers call a family meeting
Our photo of the day comes from Baños, Ecuador.
Source: TreeHugger – Photo: Rain forest caterpillar is trippy and transparent
