dryriver writes: BBC Future reports on a geoengineering technique called “marine cloud brightening” that makes marine Stratocumulus clouds — which currently reflect almost 30% of total Solar radiation back into space — whiter, causing them to reflect more sunlight away from earth. Professor Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University, a well-known 1970s wave and tidal power pioneer, has designed an unmanned hydro-foil ship, computer-controlled and wind-powered, which pumps an ultra-fine mist of sea salt toward the cloud layer, causing it to turn white: “‘Spraying about 10 cubic meters per second could undo all the [global warming] damage we’ve done to the world up until now,’ Salter claims. And, he says, the annual cost would be less than the cost to host the annual UN Climate Conference — between $100-$200 million each year. Salter calculates that a fleet of 300 of his autonomous ships could reduce global temperatures by 1.5C. He also believes that smaller fleets could be deployed to counter-act regional extreme weather events. Hurricane seasons and El Nino, exacerbated by high sea temperatures, could be tamed by targeted cooling via marine cloud brightening. Salter boasts that 160 of his ships could ‘moderate an El Nino event, and a few hundred [would] stop hurricanes.’ The same could be done, he says, to protect large coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef, and even cool the polar regions to allow sea ice to return. So, what’s the catch? Well, there’s a very big catch indeed. The potential side-effects of solar geoengineering on the scale needed to slow hurricanes or cool global temperatures are not well understood. According to various theories, it could prompt droughts, flooding, and catastrophic crop failures. Another major concern is that geoengineering could be used as an excuse to slow down emissions reduction, meaning CO2 levels continue to rise and oceans continue to acidify — which, of course, brings its own serious problems.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – 0 Million Dollars a Year Could Reverse Climate Change, Says Wave Energy Pioneer

itwbennett writes: If you’re running Elasticsearch 1.4.2 and lower, you should make sure your patches are up to date. That’s because researchers from Cisco’s Talos group have “detected an increase in attacks targeting unsecured Elasticsearch clusters.” At least six different groups are responsible for the increase, each deploying different malware, but regardless of the method, the potential impact of a breach is huge because Elasticsearch is designed to work with big data and companies use it to process sensitive data. “Given the size and sensitivity of the data sets these clusters contain, the impact of a breach of this nature could be severe,” the Talos researchers warned.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Elasticsearch Clusters Face Attacks From Multiple Hacker Groups

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Some of the world’s biggest internet messaging companies are hoping to succeed where cryptocurrency start-ups have failed by introducing mainstream consumers to the alternative world of digital coins. The internet outfits, including Facebook, Telegram and Signal, are planning to roll out new cryptocurrencies over the next year that are meant to allow users to send money to contacts on their messaging systems, like a Venmo or PayPal that can move across international borders. The most anticipated but secretive project is underway at Facebook. The company is working on a coin that users of WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, could send to friends and family instantly.

The Facebook project is far enough along that the social networking giant has held conversations with cryptocurrency exchanges about selling the Facebook coin to consumers. Telegram, which has an estimated 300 million users worldwide, is also working on a digital coin. Signal, an encrypted messaging service that is popular among technologists and privacy advocates, has its own coin in the works. And so do the biggest messaging applications in South Korea and Japan, Kakao and Line. The messaging companies have a reach that dwarfs the backers of earlier cryptocurrencies. Facebook and Telegram can make the digital wallets used for cryptocurrencies available, in an instant, to hundreds of millions of users. Most of them appear to be working on digital coins that could exist on a decentralized network of computers, independent to some degree of the companies that created them. Facebook reportedly has more than 50 engineers working on their cryptocurrency. Their project is being run by former president of PayPal, David Marcus, and started last year after Telegram raised $1.7 billion to fund its cryptocurrency project. “The five people who have been briefed on the Facebook team’s work said the company’s most immediate product was likely to be a coin that would be pegged to the value of traditional currencies,” NYT reports, citing a report from Bloomberg. “A digital token with a stable value would not be attractive to speculators — the main audience for cryptocurrencies so far — but it would allow consumers to hold it and pay for things without worrying about the value of the coin rising and falling.” The coin should come out in the first half of the year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Facebook Is Working On a New Cryptocurrency For WhatsApp Payments

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a call with reporters Thursday that the company will only sell its vehicles online. As a result, the electric carmaker will close most of its stores over the “next few months.” The Verge reports: Tesla will keep some of its retail locations open, which the company described as “a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers.” The decision to shift away from brick-and-mortar retail is necessary if the company is to remain financially sustainable, Tesla said. The company’s finances have stabilized somewhat in recent months, but Tesla still operates on very tight margins. Tesla said in a blog post: “You can now buy a Tesla in North America via your phone in about 1 minute, and that capability will soon be extended worldwide. We are also making it much easier to try out and return a Tesla, so that a test drive prior to purchase isn’t needed. You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free.”
The company announced the move at the same time it said it will finally begin to sell its long-promised $35,000 Model 3.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Tesla Will Close Most of Its Stores, Only Sell Cars Online