muscular

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  • NSA reportedly tapped into Google, Yahoo data centers worldwide without telling either company

    by 
    Brian Heater
    Brian Heater
    10.30.2013

    It's a top secret plan with a fittingly supervillain-esque codename: MUSCULAR. That tool, part of a partnership between the NSA and the UK's GCHQ, has been used to infiltrate Google and Yahoo data centers across the world, according to documents revealed by Edward Snowden and confirmed by sources at The Washington Post. It's a breach of privacy that could affect hundreds of millions of users, one that neither company was apparently privy to, in spite of the NSA's history of court-ordered data access with both. Google told The Post that it's, "troubled by allegations of the government intercepting traffic between our data centers, and [is] not aware of this activity." Yahoo echoed the sentiment, stating that it has, "strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and [has] not given access to [its] data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency." The government, naturally, isn't commenting. Likely it's waiting to swivel around in a chair with a cat in its lap for full dramatic effect. And by the way, that above image is from a slideshow entitled "Google Cloud Exploitation," happy face and all.

  • NC State gurus build remote control bats, freak out Dukies and Tar Holes

    by 
    Darren Murph
    Darren Murph
    07.07.2009

    Micro-aerial vehicles, or MAVs as they're called in the elusive underground, are far from new, but a team from NC State University is hoping to advance the field with an all new critter. The Robo-Bat is a remote controlled creature that relies on a super elastic shape-memory metal alloy for the joints, which is said to provide a full range of motion while enabling it to "always return to its original position -- a function performed by many tiny bones, cartilage and tendons in real bats." The crew is also utilizing other "smart materials" in the muscular system, giving it the ability to react in real time to environmental changes such as sudden wind gusts. Ideally, this bionic chiropteran would be used to chivvy those who dare step foot on Franklin Street or inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, but in less malicious situations, it could help well-meaning scientists get the bottom of that whole "aerodynamics" thing.