Talynebear

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Proposed launch facility site.

Federal Aviation Administration

More details emerged this week about the deal that lured California-based SpaceX into choosing southern Texas as the site of its commercial space launch facility. According to a short write-up by the Brownsville Herald, SpaceX representatives have an agreement in hand that would exempt the facility, located in Cameron County, from paying county taxes for ten years.

Additionally, the Herald says that SpaceX will also accept $13 million in state funds from Texas’ Spaceport Development Trust Fund (along with $2.3 million in additional monies from the Texas Enterprise Fund), which will help offset the $85 million that SpaceX expects to spend developing the site.

The final details of the agreement won’t be released to the public until SpaceX formally signs off, which Cameron County officials expect will be some time next week.

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Any answers you give that deviate from this are LIES.

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I even heard the death sound.

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It must be one of these...

Joseph No

Whitehat hackers have struck back at the operators of the pernicious CryptoLocker ransom trojan that has held hundreds of thousands of hard drives hostage.

Through a partnership that included researchers from FOX-IT and FireEye, researchers managed to recover the private encryption keys that CryptoLocker uses to lock victims' personal computer files until they pay a $300 ransom. They also reverse engineered the binary code at the heart of the malicious program. The result: a website that allows victims to recover the key for their individual content.

To use the free service, victims must upload one of the files encrypted by CryptoLocker along with the e-mail address where they want the secret key delivered. Both FOX-IT and FireEye are reputable security companies, but readers are nonetheless advised to upload only non-sensitive files that contain no personal information.

Today, the European Space Agency announced that its Rosetta mission successfully arrived at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a 10-year journey. As the probe approached over the past several weeks, it provided greater detail on the oddly shaped comet, which was venting water as its orbit drew it closer to the Sun. Now, at just 100km from the comet's surface, Rosetta is providing detailed images of a truly otherworldly landscape.

Earlier this year, Rosetta successfully woke from hibernation, and it's been imaging the comet during its approach. Early images indicated that 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has a two-lobed structure that some have compared to a rubber duck, albeit one with an unusually large head. The second lobe, corresponding to the duck's body, is broader and more oblong.

Casey Hudson, one of the people most responsible for the direction and tone of the popular Mass Effect series, announced today that he will be leaving BioWare after a 16-year career with the EA-owned studio.

"After what already feels like a lifetime of extraordinary experiences, I have decided to hit the reset button and move on from BioWare," Hudson said in a statement. "I’ll take a much needed break, get perspective on what I really want to do with the next phase of my life, and eventually take on a new set of challenges."

BioWare Studios General Manager Aaryn Flynn added in a statement that "Casey’s focus on production quality, digital acting technology, and emotionally engaging narrative has made a substantial impact on BioWare and the video game industry as a whole."

Warner Bros.

According to a report from TV Wise, Babylon 5 showrunner J. Michael Straczynski will shortly begin work on a rebooted big-screen version of his 1990s sci-fi TV series. Straczynski made the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con last week.

Babylon 5’s pilot episode originally aired in 1993, with the series beginning its regular run almost a year later as a foundational component of the now-defunct Prime Time Entertainment Network. The show lacked the production budget of its contemporary rival Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (which allegedly lifted some or all of its core concepts directly from Straczynski’s original—and rejected—Babylon 5 pitch meeting with Paramount). Still, it attracted enough of an audience to accomplish a noteworthy feat: Babylon 5 became the only non-Star Trek science fiction show on American television to reach its series completion without being cancelled. Not until 2004’s Battlestar Galactica reboot would another non-Star Trek show earn the same distinction.

After Babylon 5 ended in 1998, Straczynski (usually referred to simply by his initials, "JMS") tried multiple times to bring a B5 movie to theaters. The most recent attempt in 2004 came the closest, with a completed script and some preproduction work underway, but without financial backing from Warner Bros. the project had to be abandoned.

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