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Ask Slashdot: How Is Online Engineering Coursework View... 7:45 PM	Slashdot
Ask Slashdot: How Is Online Engineering Coursework Viewed By Employers? New submitter KA.7210 writes "I am an employed mechanical engineer, having worked with the same company since graduation from college 5 years ago. I am looking to increase my credentials by taking more engineering courses, potentially towards a certificate or a full master's degree. Going to school full time is not an option, and there is only one engineering school near me that offers a program that resembles what I wish to study, and also has the courses at night. Therefore, I have begun to lo... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Job Seeking Hacker Gets 30 Months In Prison 6:41 PM	Slashdot
Job Seeking Hacker Gets 30 Months In Prison wiredmikey writes "A hacker who tried to land an IT job at Marriott by hacking into the company's computer systems, and then unwisely extorting the company into hiring him, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison. The hacker started his malicious quest to land a job at Marriott by sending an email to Marriott containing documents taken after hacking into Marriott servers to prove his claim. He then threatened to reveal confidential information he obtained if Marriott did not give him a job in ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Air Guns Shake Up Earthquake Monitoring 5:50 PM	Slashdot
Air Guns Shake Up Earthquake Monitoring sciencehabit writes "Petroleum geologists have long used air guns in their search for oil and gas deposits. Sudden blasts from the devices generate seismic waves that they use to map underground rock formations. Could the same technique be used to study earthquakes? A team of Chinese scientists thinks so. The researchers have designed an air gun that could be useful in monitoring changes in stress buildup along fault zones." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Half of Fortune 500s, US Agencies Still Infected With D... 4:58 PM	Slashdot
Half of Fortune 500s, US Agencies Still Infected With DNSChanger Trojan tsu doh nimh writes "Two months after authorities shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme, the malicious software that powered the criminal network is still running on computers at half of the Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50 percent of all federal government agencies. Internet Identity, a Tacoma, Wash. company that sells security services, found evidence of at least one DNSChanger infection in computers at half of all Fortune 500 firms, and 27 out of 55 major governm... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Ex-FCC Chair: Spectrum Plan "Single Worst Telecom Bill ... 4:01 PM	Slashdot
Ex-FCC Chair: Spectrum Plan "Single Worst Telecom Bill I've Seen" alphadogg writes "Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt made waves when he called the House spectrum auction legislation 'the single worst telecom bill' he's seen. The legislation, which would severely restrict the FCC's ability to place conditions on spectrum auctions, is seen as a non-starter in the Senate where a bipartisan group of senators including John Kerry (D — Mass.) and Jerry Moran (R — Kan.) have signaled strong opposition to the House approach to authorizing spectrum auctions. ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
iOS Vs. Android: Which Has the Crashiest Apps? 3:08 PM	Slashdot
iOS Vs. Android: Which Has the Crashiest Apps? First time accepted submitter creativeHavoc writes "Forbes author Tomio Geron takes a look at data accrued by mobile app monitoring startup Crittercism. After looking at normalized data of crashes over the various mobile operating system versions he compares crash rates of apps on the two platforms. He also breaks it down further to look how the top apps compare across the competing mobile operating systems. The results may not be what you expect." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Simulators Take the Humans Out of Hiring 2:18 PM	Slashdot
Simulators Take the Humans Out of Hiring Hugh Pickens writes "Ken Gaebler discusses a new way of hiring called 'employment simulations,' which are gaining popularity among high-tech firms that are seeking data from prospective employees that you can't get from sit-down interviews. In a typical employment simulation, candidates participate in online 'video games' that leverage simulation software to determine how well candidates perform in actual job situations. 'There are no questions about your former work experience and office habits... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Google Pulls Support For CDMA Devices 11:21 AM	Slashdot
Google Pulls Support For CDMA Devices An anonymous reader writes "Google has just made some interesting changes to their developer pages. As of today, all of the documentation, source code, and firmware images pertaining to CDMA Android devices (including the Verizon Galaxy Nexus) have been removed. A statement from Google explains that the proprietary software required to make these devices fully functional got in the way of Android's open source nature, so CDMA devices are no longer supported as developer hardware. What does this ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Finding Lost Recording From the 1880s 8:26 AM	Slashdot
Finding Lost Recording From the 1880s An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times recently ran a story on the discovery of a cache of wax cylinder records, recorded in Europe in the 1880s, of Otto von Bismarck, Helmuth von Moltke, and various musicians. 'In June 1889, Edison sent Wangemann to Europe, initially to ensure that the phonograph at the Paris World’s Fair remained in working order. After Paris, Wangemann toured his native Germany, recording musical artists and often visiting the homes of prominent members of society who... Read the full article on Slashdot »
India Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France 5:27 AM	Slashdot
India Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France An anonymous reader writes "While America had offered the F-16, F-18 and now the stealth F-35 fighter, India picked for its new multi-role attack jet a low cost, older French plane. Why? For one, it's cheaper, and two, if American/Indian relations go bad, can they get the parts and equipment to keep the planes in the air? It seems prudence beat out the latest in technology." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
New Hampshire Passes 'Open Source Bill' 2:25 AM	Slashdot
New Hampshire Passes 'Open Source Bill' Plugh writes "In a victory for transparency and openness in government, and saving tax dollars, New Hampshire has passed HB418. State agencies are now required by law to consider open source software when acquiring software, and to promote the use of open data formats." Read the full article on Slashdot »
Text Message Brands Quebec Man a Terror Suspect 1:21 AM	Slashdot
Text Message Brands Quebec Man a Terror Suspect An anonymous reader writes "Saad Allami likely never expected that a simple text message of encouragement would have turned his life upside down. But as seen in a similar case of absurd overreaction by authorities, a simple text message is all it takes to have yourself branded as a terrorist. From the article: 'The Quebec man says he was arrested by provincial police while picking up his seven-year-old son at school. A team of police officers stormed into his home, telling his wife she was marri... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Apple Overturns Motorola's German iPad and iPhone Sales... 12:10 AM	Slashdot
Apple Overturns Motorola's German iPad and iPhone Sales Bans SpuriousLogic sends this excerpt from a BBC article detailing the suspension of a sales ban on certain Apple products in Germany: "Motorola Mobility had forced Apple to remove several iPad and iPhone models from its online store [yesterday] after enforcing a patent infringement court ruling delivered in December. An appeals court lifted the ban after Apple made a new license payment offer. However, Germany-based users may still face the loss of their push email iCloud service after a separate ru... Read the full article on Slashdot »
LibreOffice Developer Community Increasingly Robust Feb 04 2012 22:09:00	Slashdot
LibreOffice Developer Community Increasingly Robust New submitter someWebGeek writes "LibreOffice, the community-driven fork of OpenOffice, appears to have a very healthy and growing group of code contributors. The Document Foundation has published new stats that portray the climbing rates of developer involvement both in terms of numbers of people and numbers of code commits. One of the most encouraging aspects, as noted by Ryan Paul in an article at Ars, is that non-corporate code contributions by independent volunteers constitute the largest s... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Canada's Massive Public Traffic Surveillance System Feb 04 2012 21:01:00	Slashdot
Canada's Massive Public Traffic Surveillance System New submitter cqwww writes "A small magazine in Victoria, BC just uncovered a massive public traffic surveillance system deployed in Canada. Here's a quote from the article: 'Normally, area police manually key in plate numbers to check suspicious cars in the databases of the Canadian Police Information Center and ICBC. With [Automatic License Plate Recognition], for $27,000, a police cruiser is mounted with two cameras and software that can read license plates on both passing and stationary cars... Read the full article on Slashdot »
German Government Endorses Chrome As Most Secure Browser Feb 04 2012 19:54:00	Slashdot
German Government Endorses Chrome As Most Secure Browser New submitter beta2 writes "Several articles are noting that the German IT security agency BSI is endorsing Google Chrome browser: 'BSI ticked off Chrome's anti-exploit sandbox technology, which isolates the browser from the operating system and the rest of the computer; its silent update mechanism and Chrome's habit of bundling Adobe Flash, as its reasons for the recommendation. ... BSI also recommended Adobe Reader X — the version of the popular PDF reader that, like Chrome, relies on a ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Milky Way Magnetic Fields Charted Feb 04 2012 18:50:00	Slashdot
Milky Way Magnetic Fields Charted eldavojohn writes "Using radio telescope data, scientists from around the world have plotted the Milky Way Galaxy's magnetic field in the form of Faraday Depth. From the article, 'For 150 years, scientists have measured cosmic magnetic field by observing the Faraday effect. They know that when polarized light passes though a magnetized medium, the plane of polarization turns. This concept is called Faraday rotation. The strength and direction of the magnetic field governs the amount of rotation ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
New Book Helps You Start Contributing To Open Source Feb 04 2012 17:45:00	Slashdot
New Book Helps You Start Contributing To Open Source jrepin writes "This new book Open Advice is the answer to: 'What would you have liked to know when you started contributing?' 42 prominent free and open source software contributors give insights into the many different talents it takes to make a successful software project; coding, of course, but also design, translation, marketing and other skills. They are here to give you a head start if you are new. And if you have been contributing for a while already, they are here to give you some insigh... Read the full article on Slashdot »
$100,000 Prize: Prove Quantum Computers Impossible Feb 04 2012 16:38:00	Slashdot
$100,000 Prize: Prove Quantum Computers Impossible mikejuk writes "Quantum computing is currently a major area of research — but is this all a waste of effort? Now Scott Aaronson, a well-known MIT computer scientist, has offered a prize of $100,000 for any proof that quantum computers are impossible: 'I'm now offering a US$100,000 award for a demonstration, convincing to me, that scalable quantum computing is impossible in the physical world.' Notice the two important conditions — 'physical world' and 'scalable.' The proof doesn't ha... Read the full article on Slashdot »
President By Day, High-Tech Headhunter By Night Feb 04 2012 15:31:00	Slashdot
President By Day, High-Tech Headhunter By Night theodp writes "The White House is following up on an offer made by President Barack Obama this week to help find a job for an unemployed semiconductor engineer in Texas. The offer was made during a live online town hall after the ex-TI engineer's wife questioned the government's policy concerning H-1B visa workers. Obama asked for EE Darin Wedel's resume and said he would 'forward it to some of these companies that are telling me they can't find enough engineers in this field.' While grateful, p... Read the full article on Slashdot »
You Will Never Kill Piracy Feb 04 2012 14:25:00	Slashdot
You Will Never Kill Piracy scottbomb writes "This is perhaps the best op-ed I've read about the whole SOPA/PIPA controversy. The author challenges Hollywood to re-think their entire business model. It will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears, for now. But sooner or later, they will have no choice but to adapt. From the article: 'Now that the SOPA and PIPA fights have died down, and Hollywood prepares their next salvo against internet freedom with ACTA and PCIP, it's worth pausing to consider how the war on piracy could actually... Read the full article on Slashdot »
New Mobile Plan Pools Data On Unlimited Devices Feb 04 2012 13:21:00	Slashdot
New Mobile Plan Pools Data On Unlimited Devices Hugh Pickens writes "PC Magazine reports that Ting, a new reseller of Sprint's voice, 3G and WiMax services, has a new approach to mobile pricing that lets customers buy minutes, messages, and data separately, and allows households to pool them to an unlimited number of phones and data devices on one account. 'Household data plans are the next step for consumers, mainly because people are adding more connected screens and devices to their lifestyle,' writes Kevin Tofel. 'And different household ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
The Destruction of Iraq's Once-Great Universities Feb 04 2012 10:12:00	Slashdot
The Destruction of Iraq's Once-Great Universities Harperdog writes "Hugh Gusterson has written a devastating article about what has happened to Iraq's once great university system, and puts most of the blame for its total collapse on the U.S. Quoting: 'While American troops guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior but ignored cultural heritage sites, looters ransacked the universities. For example, the entire library collections at the University of Baghdad's College of Arts and at the University of Basra were destroyed. The Washington Po... Read the full article on Slashdot »
World's Largest Virtual Optical Telescope Created Feb 04 2012 08:26:00	Slashdot
World's Largest Virtual Optical Telescope Created erice writes "Astronomers in Chile linked four telescopes together to form a single virtual mirror 130 meters in diameter. Previous efforts had linked two telescopes but this is the first time that all four had been linked. 'The process that links separate telescopes together is known as interferometry. In this mode, the VLT becomes the biggest ground-based optical telescope on earth. Besides creating a gigantic virtual mirror, interferometry also greatly improves the telescope's spatial resolut... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Facebook On Collision Course With New EU Privacy Laws Feb 04 2012 07:14:00	Slashdot
Facebook On Collision Course With New EU Privacy Laws An anonymous reader writes "Facebook and other U.S. internet companies are faced with a new EU data protection regime, the Christian Science Monitor reports. U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce will battle European support for privacy and state legislation. 'Companies must understand that if they want access to 500 million consumers in the EU, then they have to comply. This is not an option,' said a spokesman for the EU Justice Commissioner." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Researchers Feel Pressure To Cite Superfluous Papers Feb 04 2012 05:08:00	Slashdot
Researchers Feel Pressure To Cite Superfluous Papers ananyo writes "One in five academics in a variety of social science and business fields say they have been asked to pad their papers with superfluous references in order to get published. The figures, from a survey published in the journal Science (abstract), also suggest that journal editors strategically target junior faculty, who in turn were more willing to acquiesce. The controversial practice is not new: those studying publication ethics have for many years noted that some editors encourag... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Ask Slashdot: Are Daily Stand-Up Meetings More Productive? Feb 04 2012 03:06:00	Slashdot
Ask Slashdot: Are Daily Stand-Up Meetings More Productive? __roo writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that an increasing number of companies are replacing traditional meetings with daily stand-ups. The article points out that stand-up meetings date back to at least World War I, and that in some place, late employees 'sometimes must sing a song like "I'm a Little Teapot," do a lap around the office building or pay a small fine.' Do Slashdot readers feel that stand-up meetings are useful? Do they make a difference? Are they a gimmick?" ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Doctors 'Cheating' On Board Certifications Feb 04 2012 01:04:00	Slashdot
Doctors 'Cheating' On Board Certifications Maximum Prophet writes "After taking board exams, doctors have been routinely getting together to remember and reproduce as much of the exam as they can. These notes are then bound and reproduced. According to the American Board of Dermatology, the exams are protected by copyright laws, and any reproduction not approved by the board is illegal. While I have no doubt that the Board believes this, and pays lawyers to believe it as well, I don't think they understand copyright. Perhaps they should ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Yes We Can (Profile You): a Brief Primer On Campaigns a... Feb 04 2012 00:20:00	Slashdot
Yes We Can (Profile You): a Brief Primer On Campaigns and Political Data An anonymous reader writes "In the Stanford Law Review Online, Professor Daniel Kreiss discusses 'the history of political data, focusing on the recent proliferation in voter data and development of new voter-modeling techniques,' and how 'these data practices undermine privacy and democratic practice, even as they increase participation and voter turnout.' He writes: 'Underlying all of this is a vast data infrastructure that has made targeted online advertising and marketing possible, and has c... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Apple Clarifies iBooks Author Licensing Feb 03 2012 23:59:00	Slashdot
Apple Clarifies iBooks Author Licensing bonch writes "After drawing criticism over iBooks Author's licensing language, Apple has modified it in a software update to make clear that Apple is claiming rights to the .ibook format itself and not the content therein: '[The license restriction] does not apply to the content of such works when distributed in a form that does not include files in the .ibooks format.' In other words, the content may be sold on competing book stores as long as it is not packaged using iBooks Author." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Satellite Phone Encryption Cracked Feb 03 2012 23:38:00	Slashdot
Satellite Phone Encryption Cracked New submitter The Mister Purple writes "A team of German researchers appears to have cracked the GMR-1 and GMR-2 encryption algorithms used by many (though not all) satellite phones. Anyone fancy putting a cluster together for a listening party? 'Mr. Driessen told The Telegraph that the equipment and software needed to intercept and decrypt satellite phone calls from hundreds of thousands of users would cost as little as $2,000. His demonstration system takes up to half an hour to decipher a cal... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Canada's Internet Among Best, Report Says Feb 03 2012 22:56:00	Slashdot
Canada's Internet Among Best, Report Says silentbrad writes "Canadians enjoy among the fastest, most widely available and least expensive broadband Internet in the developed world, says a report released Thursday. The report, based on the results of 52 million speed tests of broadband users across the G7 countries and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) membership, was produced by Montreal-based consulting firm Lemay Yates Associates Inc. on behalf of Rogers Communications Inc., the country's largest broadband ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
83-Year-Old Woman Gets New 3D-Printed Titanium Jaw Feb 03 2012 22:16:00	Slashdot
83-Year-Old Woman Gets New 3D-Printed Titanium Jaw arnodf writes "The University of Hasselt (in Belgium) announced today (Google translation of Dutch original) that Belgian and Dutch scientists have successfully replaced an 83-year-old woman's lower jaw with a 3D-printed model. According to the researchers, 'It is the first custom-made implant in the world to replace an entire lower jaw. ... The 3D printer prints titanium powder layer by layer, while a computer controlled laser ensures that the correct particles are fused together. Using 3D prin... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Seattle Library Lets Man Watch Porn On Computers Despit... Feb 03 2012 21:57:00	Slashdot
Seattle Library Lets Man Watch Porn On Computers Despite Complaints The Lake City library is making news for their staunch position on the First Amendment, censorship, and the right to watch porn in the library. The problem started when library patron Julie Howe found a man watching some questionable material and asked him to move to another computer. The man refused and the librarian also refused to intervene when asked saying that the library doesn't censor content. "We're a library, so we facilitate access to constitutionally protected information. We don't t... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Web Guru To the Blind Feb 03 2012 21:32:00	Slashdot
Web Guru To the Blind the_newsbeagle writes "Chieko Asakawa went blind at age 14, learned to program mainframe computers by sense of touch, and has spent her 27 years at IBM-Tokyo bringing personal computing and the Internet to the blind. From the article: 'By 1997 she had developed a plug-in that worked with the Netscape browser, mapping Web navigation commands to the computer keyboard's number pad and using text-to-speech technology to read out content. Computer stores around the world sold IBM's Home Page Reader, ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Steve Appleton, Micron CEO, Dies In Plane Crash Feb 03 2012 21:09:00	Slashdot
Steve Appleton, Micron CEO, Dies In Plane Crash CR0WTR0B0T writes "Micron CEO Steve Appleton was killed in a plane crash around 9AM on Friday, February 3rd. He was flying an experimental fixed-wing single engine Lancair, which crashed in between two runways at the Boise airport." Read the full article on Slashdot »
ACTA's EU Future In Doubt As Poland Suspends Ratification Feb 03 2012 20:50:00	Slashdot
ACTA's EU Future In Doubt As Poland Suspends Ratification superglaze writes "Poland has suspended its ratification process for ACTA, throwing the copyright crackdown into doubt for the whole European Union. ACTA is being handled as a 'mixed agreement' in the EU due to its criminalization clauses, so if a single EU member state (such as Poland) fails to ratify it, it is null and void across the entire union. If that were to happen, at least six of the remaining international signatories would have to ratify ACTA for it to apply anywhere in the world. Ou... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Firefox's Web Push Notification System Announced Feb 03 2012 20:07:00	Slashdot
Firefox's Web Push Notification System Announced eldavojohn writes "Describing Notifications as 'somewhere between email and IM,' Mozilla has announced this push technology as a way to receive notifications from websites without having to keep them open in your browser — as well as receiving them on your mobile device. A JavaScript API reveals early interface ideas by the team. This core concept is not new — both Google and Apple have their own push notification systems for Android and iOS respectively. However, 'It's important to ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Did North Korea Conduct Secret Nuclear Tests? Feb 03 2012 19:25:00	Slashdot
Did North Korea Conduct Secret Nuclear Tests? gbrumfiel writes "In May of 2010, North Korea made the bizarre claim that it had achieved nuclear fusion. Many, many commentators (including faithful Slashdot readers) mocked the dear leader for his outlandish boast, but could there have been a kernel of truth in the claim? Apparently some odd radioactivity was spotted by detectors surrounding the North just days after the announcement. Now, a new analysis by a Swedish scientist suggests that the radiation may have leaked from covert experiments... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Windows Phone 8 Detailed, Uses Windows 8 Kernel Feb 03 2012 18:42:00	Slashdot
Windows Phone 8 Detailed, Uses Windows 8 Kernel MrSeb writes "Thanks to a leaked video — a video that Microsoft made for Nokia — we now have lots of details about Windows Phone 8 (WP8). From deep Windows 8, Skype, and SkyDrive integration, through to the addition of NFC 'wallet' payments and BitLocker encryption, it sounds like Windows Phone 8 will be close to iOS and Android in terms of features. The interesting stuff is under the hood, though: WP8 will have the Windows 8 kernel instead of the Windows CE kernel of its predecessor... Read the full article on Slashdot »
RIAA Wants To Scrap Anti-Piracy OPEN Act Feb 03 2012 18:00:00	Slashdot
RIAA Wants To Scrap Anti-Piracy OPEN Act silentbrad writes with these selections from an article at Ars Technica: "The Recording Industry Association of America found itself in an unusual position this week: opposing an anti-piracy bill that's gaining momentum in Congress ... the RIAA argues the bill won't be effective at shutting down rogue sites. The trade group warns of 'indefinite delays' as claims of infringement are investigated. And it complains that the process envisioned by OPEN would allow for 'endless submissions by parties ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
What's the Damage? Measuring fsck Under XFS and Ext4 On... Feb 03 2012 17:40:00	Slashdot
What's the Damage? Measuring fsck Under XFS and Ext4 On Big Storage An anonymous reader writes "Enterprise Storage Forum's long-awaited Linux file system Fsck testing is finally complete. Find out just how bad the Linux file system scaling problem really is." Read the full article on Slashdot »
Anonymous Posts Audio of Intercepted FBI Conference Call Feb 03 2012 17:19:00	Slashdot
Anonymous Posts Audio of Intercepted FBI Conference Call DrDevil writes "A member of the computer hacking group Anonymous has hacked into a telephone conference between the FBI and Scotland Yard (London Police) and posted it on the internet. The Daily Telegraph has a comprehensive article on the hack. The audio of the call can be heard here." Reader eldavojohn snips as well from the AP's story as carried by Google: "Those on the call talk about what legal strategy to pursue in the cases of Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis — two British suspects linked... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Chinese Boy Claims To Have Cat-Like Night Vision Feb 03 2012 17:02:00	Slashdot
Chinese Boy Claims To Have Cat-Like Night Vision Oswald McWeany writes "Reports swirling around the Internet are that a boy in China may have cat-like night vision. The boy with eerie blue-eyes was able to fill out a questionnaire in the dark and his eyes reflect like a cat's when a light is shined on them. No reports yet if he marks his territory or is litter box trained." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Thanks to DRM, Some Ubisoft Games Won't Work Next Week Feb 03 2012 16:37:00	Slashdot
Thanks to DRM, Some Ubisoft Games Won't Work Next Week hypnosec writes "Several of Ubisoft's biggest titles won't be playable as of next week thanks to a server move by the publisher and the restrictive DRM that was used in their development. This isn't just multiplayer either. Because Ubisoft thought it would be a smart plan to use always on DRM for even the single player portion of games like Assassin's Creed, even the single player portion of that title won't be playable during the server move. Some of the other games affected by this move will b... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Alzheimer's Transmission Pathway Discovered Feb 03 2012 15:54:00	Slashdot
Alzheimer's Transmission Pathway Discovered smitty777 writes "Two separate studies by the Taub Institute and Harvard have discovered the pathway used by Alzheimer's Disease to spread through the brain. The studies indicate it's not a virus, but a distorted protein called Tau which moves from cell to cell. Further, the discovery 'may now offer scientists a way to move forward and develop a way to block tau's spread in Alzheimer's patients, said Karen Duff, a researcher at Columbia's Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's disease and co... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Credit Suisse Traders Manipulated IT Systems To Hide $5... Feb 03 2012 15:12:00	Slashdot
Credit Suisse Traders Manipulated IT Systems To Hide $500m Losses New submitter Qedward writes with a snippet from ComputerWorld UK: "Two traders at Credit Suisse have pleaded guilty to wire fraud and falsifying data after authorities said they had manipulated the bank's record systems, as the credit crunch approached, in order to help conceal over half a billion dollars' worth of losses. The traders admitted to circumventing a mandatory real time reporting system introduced by Credit Suisse, manually entering false profit and loss (P&L) figures as the pro... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Google Starts Scanning Android Apps Feb 03 2012 14:31:00	Slashdot
Google Starts Scanning Android Apps eldavojohn writes "A recent blog post has Android developers talking about Google finally scanning third party applications for malware. Oddly enough, Google claims this service (codenamed 'Bouncer') has been active for some time: 'The service has been looking for malicious apps in Market for a while now, and between the first and second halves of 2011, we saw a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market. This drop occurred at the same time that companies w... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Researchers Create Glass Just 3 Atoms Thick Feb 03 2012 14:10:00	Slashdot
Researchers Create Glass Just 3 Atoms Thick sciencehabit writes "Researchers have created the world's thinnest pane of glass. The glass, made of silicon and oxygen, formed accidentally when the scientists were making graphene, an atom-thick sheet of carbon, on copper-covered quartz. They believe an air leak caused the copper to react with the quartz, which is also made of silicon and oxygen, producing a glass layer with the graphene. The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it t... Read the full article on Slashdot »
How the GOP (and the Tea Party) Helped Kill SOPA Feb 03 2012 13:50:00	Slashdot
How the GOP (and the Tea Party) Helped Kill SOPA Hugh Pickens writes "Strengthening intellectual property enforcement has been a bipartisan issue for the past 25 years, but Stewart Baker writes in the Hollywood Reporter that when the fight went from the committees to the floor and Wikipedia went down, the Democratic and Republican parties reacted very differently to SOPA. 'Despite widespread opposition to SOPA from bloggers on the left, Democrats in Congress (and the administration) were reluctant to oppose the bill outright,' writes Baker. 'T... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Craigslist Donates $100,000 To the Perl Foundation Feb 03 2012 13:08:00	Slashdot
Craigslist Donates $100,000 To the Perl Foundation mikejuk writes "The craigslist Charitable Fund has donated $100,000 to the Perl community for Perl5 maintenance and general use by the Perl Foundation. Craigslist gets more than 30 billion views per month and it is mostly written in Perl. The entire architecture of the system is open source — a proxy array based on Perl and memcache and a backend provided by Apache, memcache, MySQL and, of course, Perl. This is a successful enterprise giving something back to open source — which is h... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Apple Loses German Court Bid To Ban Samsung Galaxy Tab ... Feb 03 2012 10:33:00	Slashdot
Apple Loses German Court Bid To Ban Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N, Nexus Phone chrb writes "Apple has failed to get a patent ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1N and the Nexus phone in Germany. Presiding Judge Andreas Mueller stated, 'Samsung has shown that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of a technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection.' The patent in question covered list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display. This news follows the re... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Norway Brings DNA Sequencing To National Healthcare Feb 03 2012 08:05:00	Slashdot
Norway Brings DNA Sequencing To National Healthcare ananyo writes "Norway is set to become the first country to incorporate genome sequencing into its national health-care system. The Scandinavian nation, which has a population of 4.8 million, will use 'next-generation' DNA sequencers to trawl for mutations in tumors that might reveal which cancer treatments would be most effective. In its three-year pilot phase, the Norwegian Cancer Genomics Consortium will sequence the tumor genomes of 1,000 patients in the hope of influencing their treatments.... Read the full article on Slashdot »
New Exoplanet Is Best Yet Candidate For Supporting Life Feb 03 2012 05:31:00	Slashdot
New Exoplanet Is Best Yet Candidate For Supporting Life First time accepted submitter uigrad_2000 writes "With all the new exoplanets discovered recently with Kepler, it seemed a sure thing that the first exoplanet in the habitable zone of a star would be found soon. The irony is that Kepler was not involved. GJ 667Cc is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, and lies in the habitable region of its host star, reports Scientific American. It was discovered by comparing public data from the ESO to recent observations from Hawaii and Chile. As opposed ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
The IT Certs That No Longer Pay Extra Feb 03 2012 03:03:00	Slashdot
The IT Certs That No Longer Pay Extra snydeq writes "Overall employment in tech is improving, but the certs you could once count on for a job or extra pay are losing their value, InfoWorld reports. 'Businesses no longer value what are increasingly considered standard skills, and instead are putting their money both into a new set of emerging specialties and into hybrid technology/business roles.'" ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Flying Robots Flip, Swarm and Move In Formation At UPenn Feb 03 2012 01:10:00	Slashdot
Flying Robots Flip, Swarm and Move In Formation At UPenn techgeek0279 writes "The University of Pennsylvania's General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory has released a video of flying nano quadrotor robots. Inspired by swarming habits in nature, these agile robots avoid obstructions and perform complex maneuvers as a group." Read more of this s... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Next-Gen Spacesuits Feb 03 2012 00:23:00	Slashdot
Next-Gen Spacesuits ambermichelle writes "Outer space is a hostile environment for humans, characterized by an airless vacuum, thermal extremes, ionizing radiation and speeding micro meteoroids. Less well-known are the dangers posed by long-term exposure to microgravity or zero-g conditions, which over time severely saps the strength of astronauts' muscles and bones. Several researchers are working to develop new spacesuit designs that could help counteract these threats as well as avoid some of the familiar drawba... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Kelihos Botnet Comes Back To Life Feb 02 2012 23:40:00	Slashdot
Kelihos Botnet Comes Back To Life angry tapir writes "A botnet that was crippled by Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab last September is spamming once again and experts have no recourse to stop it. The Kelihos botnet only infected 45,000 or so computers but managed to send out nearly 4 billion spam messages a day, promoting, among other things, pornography, illegal pharmaceuticals and stock scams. But it was temporarily corralled last September after researchers used various technical means to get the 45,000 or so infected computers to... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Super Bowl Bust: Feds Grab 307 NFL Websites; $4.8M Feb 02 2012 22:58:00	Slashdot
Super Bowl Bust: Feds Grab 307 NFL Websites; $4.8M coondoggie writes "Speaking at a National Football League press conference ahead of this weekend's Super Bowl, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said special agents this week seized a total of 307 websites and snatched up 42,692 items of phony Super Bowl-related memorabilia along with other counterfeit items for a total take of more than $4.8 million – up from $3.72 million last year." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
How Far Should GPL Enforcement Go? Feb 02 2012 22:13:00	Slashdot
How Far Should GPL Enforcement Go? itwbennett writes "The debate over enforcement of the GPL flared up again this week when Red Hat kernel developer Matthew Garrett wrote in a blog post that Sony is looking to rewrite BusyBox to sidestep the GPL. Which is a perfectly legal undertaking. But it raises the question: 'Is there social pressure within the Linux kernel community to not undertake GPL compliance action?' writes blogger Brian Proffitt. 'This may not be nefarious: maybe people just would rather not bother with enforcing com... Read the full article on Slashdot »
FDA Regulating Your Stem Cells As Interstate Commerce Feb 02 2012 21:32:00	Slashdot
FDA Regulating Your Stem Cells As Interstate Commerce New submitter dcbrianw writes "A non-surgical procedure that treats joint pain involves removing stem cells from a patient's blood and reinserting them into the joint. The facility conducting these procedures resides in Colorado, but because it orders equipment to perform the procedure from outside of Colorado, the FDA claims it must regulate this process and that it can classify stem cells as a drug. This issue opens the debate of what the FDA, or other regulatory bodies, may regulate within ea... Read the full article on Slashdot »
DC Comics Prevails In Batmobile Copyright Dispute Feb 02 2012 21:01:00	Slashdot
DC Comics Prevails In Batmobile Copyright Dispute think_nix writes "Wired reports of U.S. District Judge Ronald S. W. Lew siding with DC Comics in the federal copyright court case against Gotham Garage owner Mark Towle. DC accused Towle of selling 'unlicensed replica vehicle modification kits based on vehicle design copyrights from plaintiff's Batman property, including various iterations of the fictional automobile, the Batmobile.' Lew noted that 'DC Comics pleads sufficient facts to support its allegations. Although, generally copyright law d... Read the full article on Slashdot »
AMD Says It's 'Ambidextrous,' Hints It May Offer ARM Chips Feb 02 2012 20:47:00	Slashdot
AMD Says It's 'Ambidextrous,' Hints It May Offer ARM Chips J. Dzhugashvili writes "Today at its Financial Analyst Day, AMD made statements that strongly suggest it plans to offer ARM-based chips alongside its x86 CPUs and APUs. According to coverage of the event, top executives including CEO Rory Read talked up an 'ambidextrous' approach to instruction-set architectures. One executive went even further: 'She said AMD will not be "religious" about architectures and touted AMD's "flexibility" as one of its key strategic advantages for the future.' The roa... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Is the Earth Gaining Or Losing Mass? Feb 02 2012 20:06:00	Slashdot
Is the Earth Gaining Or Losing Mass? Hugh Pickens writes writes "BBC recently asked physicist and Cambridge University professor Dave Ansell to draw up a balance sheet of the mass that's coming in to the earth, and the mass going out to find out if the earth is gaining or losing mass. By far the biggest contributor to the world's mass is the 40,000 tonnes of dust that is falling from space to Earth every year. 'The Earth is acting like a giant vacuum cleaner powered by gravity in space, pulling in particles of dust,' says Dr. Chris... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Oklahoma Politician Wants To Tax Violent Video Games Feb 02 2012 19:25:00	Slashdot
Oklahoma Politician Wants To Tax Violent Video Games dotarray writes "According to an Oklahoma politician, video games help cause many problems affecting the youth of today, but they can also help solve those same problems. Representative William Fourkiller, a Democrat, has proposed a 1% tax on every video game sold which has a Teen, Mature or Adults Only rating. He explains that half of the money would go towards helping to get kids playing outside, while the other half would be placed into a bullying prevention fund." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
In Xhengzhou, Thousands Vie For Foxconn Jobs Feb 02 2012 18:44:00	Slashdot
In Xhengzhou, Thousands Vie For Foxconn Jobs hypnosec writes "Foxconn is supposedly looking to enhance its workforce in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou and despite the less-than-satisfactory working conditions in the company, thousands of aspirants are lining up for jobs in its factories. Not caring about the harsh working conditions at Foxconn, thousands of people congregated outside a labor office in Zhengzhou, the largest city of Henan province in North central China, impatiently waiting for a chance to work at Foxconn. Foxconn, which is ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
SpaceX Tries Out Its New SuperDraco Rocket Engine Feb 02 2012 18:22:00	Slashdot
SpaceX Tries Out Its New SuperDraco Rocket Engine cylonlover writes "SpaceX, the California company that is developing the reusable Dragon spacecraft, recently test-fired its new SuperDraco engine. Presently, the Dragon capsule is equipped with less-advanced Draco engines, which are designed for maneuvering the spacecraft while in orbit and during reentry. The SuperDraco, however, is intended to allow the astronauts to escape if an emergency occurs during the launch." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist Feb 02 2012 18:03:00	Slashdot
Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist schwit1 passes on this snippet from Public Intelligence: "A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity. The document, part of a program called 'Communities Against Terrorism,' lists the use of 'anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address' as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity. The use of enc... Read the full article on Slashdot »
French Court Calls Free Google Maps Unfair Competition Feb 02 2012 17:21:00	Slashdot
French Court Calls Free Google Maps Unfair Competition jfruh writes "A French court has ruled that Google is unfairly subsidizing its free mapping products, making for unfair competition with paid services. This might seem ridiculous, but keep in mind that Google started charging for use of its mapping API once the free version had come to dominate the market." Read more ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Slovenian Ambassador Regrets Signing ACTA Agreement Feb 02 2012 17:01:00	Slashdot
Slovenian Ambassador Regrets Signing ACTA Agreement metacell writes "Slovenia's ambassador to Japan, Helena Drnovek Zorko, writes: 'I signed ACTA out of civic carelessness, because I did not pay enough attention. Quite simply, I did not clearly connect the agreement I had been instructed to sign with the agreement that, according to my own civic conviction, limits and withholds the freedom of engagement on the largest and most significant network in human history, and thus limits particularly the future of our children.'" ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Versign Admits Company Was Hacked In 2010, Not Sure Wha... Feb 02 2012 16:39:00	Slashdot
Versign Admits Company Was Hacked In 2010, Not Sure What Was Stolen mask.of.sanity writes "Verisign admitted it was hacked repeatedly last year and cannot pin down what data was stolen.It says it doesn't believe the Domain Name System servers were hacked but it cannot rule it out. Symantec, which bought its certificate business in 2010, says also that there was no evidence that system was affected. Verisign further admitted in an SEC filing that its security team failed to tell management about the attacks until 2011, despite moving to address the hacks."Rea... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Verisign Admits Company Was Hacked In 2010, Not Sure Wh... Feb 02 2012 16:39:00	Slashdot
Verisign Admits Company Was Hacked In 2010, Not Sure What Was Stolen mask.of.sanity writes "Verisign admitted it was hacked repeatedly last year and cannot pin down what data was stolen. It says it doesn't believe the Domain Name System servers were hacked but it cannot rule it out. Symantec, which bought its certificate business in 2010, says also that there was no evidence that system was affected. Verisign further admitted in an SEC filing that its security team failed to tell management about the attacks until 2011, despite moving to address the hacks." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
1st Video of Moon's Far Side Feb 02 2012 16:20:00	Slashdot
1st Video of Moon's Far Side chill writes "A gravity-mapping spacecraft orbiting the moon has beamed home its first video of the lunar far side — a view people on Earth never see. Because the moon is tidally locked with Earth, it only presents one face to the planet's surface (the near side). The side of the moon that faces away from Earth is the far side. Only robotic spacecraft and Apollo astronauts who orbited the moon in the 1960s and 1970s have seen the far side of the moon directly." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
OpenStack Ditches Microsoft Hyper-V Feb 02 2012 15:58:00	Slashdot
OpenStack Ditches Microsoft Hyper-V judgecorp writes "The OpenStack open source cloud project has removed Hyper-V from its infrastructure as a service (IaaS) framework, saying Microsoft's support for its hypervisor technology is 'broken.' This will embarass Microsoft, as major partners such as Dell and HP support OpenStack, along with service providers such as Internap." Adds reader alphadogg, this "means the code will be removed when the next version of OpenStack, called Essex, is released in the second quarter." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Leaked Zynga Memo Justifies Copycat Strategy Feb 02 2012 15:37:00	Slashdot
Leaked Zynga Memo Justifies Copycat Strategy bonch writes "After taking heat over allegations of copying hit indie game Tiny Tower, Zynga founder Mark Pincus wrote an internal memo justifying the company's strategy of cloning competing titles, citing the Google search engine and Apple iPod as successful products which weren't first in their markets. Pincus infamously told employees: 'I don't want f*cking innovation. You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.'" ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
In Small WV Town, Monsanto Faces Class-Action Suit Over... Feb 02 2012 15:15:00	Slashdot
In Small WV Town, Monsanto Faces Class-Action Suit Over Agent Orange Chemical eldavojohn writes "Agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto is now at the receiving end of a lawsuit from representatives of anyone who lived in the small town of Nitro, WV from 1949 on. This suit alleges that Monsanto spread chemical toxins all over town — most notably the carcinogenic dioxins. The plant in question produced herbicide 2,4,5-T, which was used in Vietnam as an ingredient for 'Agent Orange.' [Note: link contains some disturbing images; click cautiously.] From the article:... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Estonian Tech University Bans Notebooks and Smartphones Feb 02 2012 14:33:00	Slashdot
Estonian Tech University Bans Notebooks and Smartphones J-Georg writes "In Estonia's Tallinn University of Technology, all electronic devices — like notebooks, tablets and smartphones — are now banned in lectures held by the Institute of Public Administration. The restriction, which according to the institute aims to reduce factors interfering with academic work, came as a surprise to most of the university-goers. Moreover, it came just a day before the country's Ministry of Education announced a plan that by 2020 all textbooks and other ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
3,500 Year Old Florida Tree Dies of Natural Causes Feb 02 2012 14:13:00	Slashdot
3,500 Year Old Florida Tree Dies of Natural Causes hondo77 writes with an excerpt from The Daily "'Mother Nature claimed one of her oldest living specimens (Monday) in a freak fire that destroyed a 3,500-year-old bald cypress tree towering over central Florida. Known as "The Senator," or simply "The Big Tree," the hollowed-out majestic timber, standing at 118 feet tall, ignited before dawn. Firefighters watched helplessly as the oldest tree east of the Mississippi — and the fifth oldest in the world — blazed and then collapsed in a h... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Google Asks Court Not To Enjoin ReDigi Feb 02 2012 13:47:00	Slashdot
Google Asks Court Not To Enjoin ReDigi NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Google has sought leave to submit an amicus curiae brief against Capitol Records' preliminary injunction motion in Capitol Records v. ReDigi. In their letter seeking pre-motion conference or permission to file (PDF) Google argued that '[t]he continued vitality of the cloud computing industry—which constituted an estimated $41 billion dollar global market in 2010—depends in large part on a few key legal principles that the preliminary injunction motion imp... Read the full article on Slashdot »
The Gang Behind the World's Largest Spam Botnet Feb 02 2012 13:05:00	Slashdot
The Gang Behind the World's Largest Spam Botnet tsu doh nimh writes "A Wikileaks-style war of attrition between two competing rogue Internet pharmacy gangs has exposed some of the biggest spammers on the planet. Brian Krebs uncovers fascinating information about a hacker named 'GeRa' who is supposedly behind the Grum botnet, which is currently sending about one out of every three spam emails worldwide. The story also points to several possible real-identities behind the Internet's largest spam machine." ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Aussies Could Use Elephants To Fight Invasive Species Feb 02 2012 11:47:00	Slashdot
Aussies Could Use Elephants To Fight Invasive Species A type of invasive African grass is a major cause of wildfires in Australia. The giant gamba grass is too large for cattle and the native marsupial grazers to eat, but David Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania has a plan. He says that elephants or rhinoceroses could eat the pest grass. "... the only other methods likely to control gamba grass involve using chemicals or physically clearing the land, which would destroy the habitat. Using mega-herbivor... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Berkeley Scientists Develop Self-Assembling Nanorods Feb 02 2012 09:23:00	Slashdot
Berkeley Scientists Develop Self-Assembling Nanorods First time accepted submitter techgeek0279 writes "Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures." Read the full article on Slashdot »
DARPA Works On Virtual Reality Contact Lenses Feb 02 2012 06:22:00	Slashdot
DARPA Works On Virtual Reality Contact Lenses gManZboy writes "Binoculars and night-vision goggles have their limits. So DARPA is doing work at Washington-based Innovega iOptiks to create wearable eye lenses with tiny, full-color displays onto which digital images can be projected, to give soldiers better situational awareness. The lenses would allow users to focus simultaneously on images that are both close up (perhaps a display) and far away (perhaps a battlefield.) Using virtual reality technologies to improve how soldiers perform on th... Read the full article on Slashdot »
What Makes Spider Webs Tough As Steel Feb 02 2012 04:33:00	Slashdot
What Makes Spider Webs Tough As Steel sciencehabit writes "A new analysis reveals the intricacies of spider web design, showing how the unique properties of its silk turn webs into flexible yet strong traps. Computer simulations reveal that heavy forces spread over the entire net rather than stay local. Real spider silk can be either stretchy or stiff at different times, which produces threads that flex and then snap in just the right way to avoid wrecking nearby spokes." Read the full article on Slashdot »
Pirate Apple TV Operation Nabbed In Australia Feb 02 2012 03:29:00	Slashdot
Pirate Apple TV Operation Nabbed In Australia littlekorea writes "New South Wales Police have arrested a man selling USB keys bearing the Apple logo, which offered access to over a thousand Pay TV channels, another thousand movies on demand and several hundred adult films. A forensic analysis of the device revealed the content was hosted in China but streamed via US servers and domains." Read the full article on Slashdot »
Sensor Networks In San Francisco Finds Parking Spots Feb 02 2012 01:21:00	Slashdot
Sensor Networks In San Francisco Finds Parking Spots MrSeb writes "You've heard of smart cars, and now, rolling out in San Francisco, is a smart parking system that promises to eliminate the arduous process of finding a parking spot. SFpark is a network of magnetic sensors that have been installed under 8,200 street parking spaces, along with additional information from parking garages and parking meters. These sensors are all linked together in a mesh network, and ultimately link back to a central command center. Drivers can access this parking d... Read the full article on Slashdot »
The Hi-Tech Security at the Super Bowl Feb 02 2012 00:30:00	Slashdot
The Hi-Tech Security at the Super Bowl Hugh Pickens writes "As millions of fans sit glued to their sets next Sunday, one part of the game they will not see is the massive deployment of federal and local law enforcement resources to achieve what is being called the most technologically secure Super Bowl in history, an event that has been officially designated as a National Security Special Event (PDF). At the top of the list are gamma-ray cargo and vehicles scanners that can reportedly see through six inches of steel to reveal the con... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Japan Plans To Merge Major Science Bodies Feb 01 2012 23:48:00	Slashdot
Japan Plans To Merge Major Science Bodies ananyo writes "In its battle against a sluggish economy, Japan's government is gearing up to make cost savings through a root-and-branch reform of the country's science system, merging some of its most prominent research organizations. Plans approved by the government's cabinet would consolidate the RIKEN network of basic-research laboratories with the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), the National Research Instit... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Pirate Bay Founders Lose Final Appeal Feb 01 2012 23:06:00	Slashdot
Pirate Bay Founders Lose Final Appeal therufus writes "Sweden's Supreme Court announced its decision not to grant leave to appeal in the long-running Pirate Bay criminal trial. This means that the previously determined jail sentences and fines handed out to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström will stand." Read the full article on Slashdot »
Crab Robot Helps Remove Stomach Cancer Feb 01 2012 22:23:00	Slashdot
Crab Robot Helps Remove Stomach Cancer redletterdave writes "Singaporean researchers have created a miniature robot with a pincer and a hook that can remove early-stage stomach cancers without leaving any scars. Mounted on an endoscope, it enters the patient's gut through the mouth. It has a pincer to hold cancerous tissues, and a hook that slices them off and coagulates blood to stop bleeding. With the help of a tiny camera attached to the endoscope, the surgeon sees what's inside the gut and controls the robotic arms remotely while... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Google Begins Country-Specific Blog Censorship Feb 01 2012 21:41:00	Slashdot
Google Begins Country-Specific Blog Censorship bonch writes "Google will begin redirecting blogs to country-specific URLs. Blog visitors will be redirected to a URL specific to their location, with content subject to their country's censorship laws. A support post on Blogger explains the change: 'Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you're reading has been redirected to a country-code top level domain, or "ccTLD." For example, if you're in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected to [blo... Read the full article on Slashdot »
NASA Studying Solar Powered "Space Tugboat" Feb 01 2012 20:57:00	Slashdot
NASA Studying Solar Powered "Space Tugboat" Zothecula writes "Last year, NASA announced it was seeking proposals for mission concept studies of a high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) system that could be used in a 'space tugboat.' Such a ship would be used ferry payloads in low Earth orbit (LEO) into higher energy orbits, including geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) and Lagrange point one (L1) — saving on fuel and the use of expensive secondary boosters. NASA also anticipates an SEP system could be used to propel spacecraft into... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Firefox 10 Released Feb 01 2012 20:34:00	Slashdot
Firefox 10 Released Taco Cowboy writes "It's time to upgrade again. Firefox 10 is out and here's a list of bugs fixed in the new version." Read the full article on Slashdot »
Microsoft Releases Kinect For Windows Feb 01 2012 20:14:00	Slashdot
Microsoft Releases Kinect For Windows nk497 writes "Microsoft has released Kinect for Windows, featuring a new "near mode" that lets the gesture control tech be used as close as 40cm. The Kinect for Windows hardware will retail at $249 — well above the price of the version for Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft defended the price difference, saying sales of games and Xbox Live subscriptions help subsidize the console version. The new version will support Windows 7 and the Windows 8 developer preview, as well as Windows Embedded 7 de... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Facebook Reportedly Filing $5 Billion IPO Today Feb 01 2012 19:33:00	Slashdot
Facebook Reportedly Filing $5 Billion IPO Today hypnosec writes "Today is the day when Facebook may be submitting all required paperwork to regulators for its $5 billion initial public offering. According to the source close to the deal, Facebook has selected Morgan Stanley along with four others — Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Barclay's Capital to handle this IPO. Morgan Stanley will be taking "lead left" role in this supposedly biggest IPO from Silicon Valley. According to International Financing Review, ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
DC Comics Announces "Before Watchmen" Feb 01 2012 18:48:00	Slashdot
DC Comics Announces "Before Watchmen" eldavojohn writes "Currently DC Comics' site has a banner announcing a new series called "Before Watchmen." Unfortunately the blog pages for this new series appear to be experiencing high traffic and are unreachable. But a number of sites are breaking down these new endeavors that will be giving backstories to the seven characters and who will be creating each of those series. There's also speculation ranging from how much this must upset Alan Moore (egg frying on his forehead seems to be the po... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Early Plants May Have Caused Massive Glaciation Feb 01 2012 18:22:00	Slashdot
Early Plants May Have Caused Massive Glaciation sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from Science: "The first plants to colonize land didn't merely supply a dash of green to a drab landscape. They dramatically accelerated the natural breakdown of exposed rocks, according to a new study, drawing so much planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere that they sent Earth's climate spiraling into a major ice age." Read the full article on Slashdot »
New BBC Sports Website Makes Heavy Use of RDF Feb 01 2012 18:05:00	Slashdot
New BBC Sports Website Makes Heavy Use of RDF New submitter whyloginwhysubscribe writes "A technical blog post describes how the BBC has rolled out the latest changes to its sports website in anticipation of the Summer Olympics in London. The innovative content management system extends the already available dynamic semantic publishing, which enables their journalists 'to spend more time creating great content and less time managing that content.' The post covers some of the technical and lots of the HCI / UI design decisions and is accompa... Read the full article on Slashdot »
EFF Seeking Information of Legal Users of Megaupload Feb 01 2012 17:23:00	Slashdot
EFF Seeking Information of Legal Users of Megaupload The Electronic Frontier Foundation, with the assistance of Carpathia Hosting, has issued a a call for information on users who lost legitimate data as part of the Megaupload takedown. No promises are made at this point, but Carpathia at least notes: "We have no immediate plans to reprovision some or all of the Megaupload servers. This means that there is no imminent data loss for Megaupload customers. If this situation changes, we will post a notice at least 7 days in advance of reprovisioning a... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Linux Game Publishing CEO Resigns Feb 01 2012 17:00:00	Slashdot
Linux Game Publishing CEO Resigns An anonymous reader writes "The CEO of the once fledging Linux Game Publishing, Michael Simms, has announced his resignation. Simms attributes his resignation from the Linux game porting company he founded more than a decade ago to being burned out and having little success as of late in his work." In his place, Clive Crouse will be taking the helm. Read the full article on Slashdot »

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