32975979
submission
Google85 writes:
Yahoo’s embattled CEO Scott Thompson is set to step down from his job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, in what will be dramatic end to a controversy over a fake computer science degree that he had on his bio, according to multiple sources close to the situation.
The company will apparently say he is leaving for “personal reasons.”
Thompson’s likely replacement on an interim basis will be Yahoo’s global media head Ross Levinsohn, who most recently also ran its Americas unit, including its advertising sales.
32974831
submission
mikejuk writes:
The Goldbach conjecture is not the sort of thing that relates to practical applications, but they used to say the same thing about electricity.
The Goldbach conjecture is reasonably well known:
every integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes.
Very easy to state, but it seems very difficult to prove.
Terence Tao, a Fields medalist, has published a paper that proves that every odd number greater than 1 is the sum of at most five primes. This may not sound like much of an advance, but notice that there is no stipulation for the integer to be greater than some bound. This is a complete proof of a slightly lesser conjecture, and might point the way to getting the number of primes needed down from at most five to at most 2.
Notice that no computers where involved in the proof — this is classical mathematical proof involving logical deductions rather than exhaustive search.
32973983
submission
htnmmo writes:
Posted on wired, Oracle Wins (Tiny) Battle in War With Google "Judge William Alsup ruled that evidence presented during the trial had shown that Google infringed on Oracle’s copyrights by decompiling eight Java files and copying them in their entirety for use with Android."
32973111
submission
infernet writes:
I was trying to find some kind of universal client for all those free cloud drive options. I've read this article (http://wp.me/pP1lJ-9o) and the amount of services offering free, small accounts is amazing. The only drawbacks are that I don't like the idea of running tens of sync agents on my computer and that most services include clients only for Windows or Mac (I run only Linux on my devices).
I wonder if someone is working on a project like this: a single client where you could put all your credentials, then you could remote synchronize all possible files on your computer with all those free services. Even more, you could let the software determine where to synchronize what, depending on features of the service provider (e.g. streaming, music player, photo viewer, etc.) and security (country of storage, redundancy, etc.).
Please post here your comments about this. I think it would be a great project if it does not exist.
32971147
submission
beaverdownunder writes:
Police in the Australian state of Victoria have confirmed that they are investigating employing unmanned drones in the war against crime, following the lead of law enforcement agencies in the United States, set to begin using drones as of tomorrow.
This revelations has alarmed Australian civil libertarians, who fear that in a country with no constitutionally-protected civil rights, people could be surveilled for political reasons.
32968447
submission
Diggester writes:
The satellite, known as Elektro-L No.1, took this image from its stationary point over 35,000 kilometers above the Indian Ocean. This is the most detailed image of the Earth yet available to human beings, just because it captures the Earth in a single shot with 121-megapixels unlike NASA satellites, which usually use a collection of pictures from multiple flybys stitched together. The detail in the pic is just amazing, with everything visible so clearly.
32967473
submission
Tablizer writes:
Washington Post: "Should we build a Death Star? This debate picked up this year after some Lehigh University students estimated that just the steel for a Death Star would cost $852 quadrillion, or 13,000 times the current GDP of the Earth...Death Star is a bit misunderstood. It is primarily a tool of domestic politics rather than warfare, and should be compared to alternative means of suppressing the population of a galaxy. Second, as a weapon of war, it should be compared to alternative uses of scarce defense resources. Understood properly, the Death Star is not worth it.
32955085
submission
theodp writes:
The Floppy Disk Icon, observes Scott Hanselman, means 'save' for a whole generation of people who have never seen one. That, and other old people icons that don't make sense anymore — Radio Buttons, Clipboards, Bookmarks, Address Books and Calendars, Voicemail, Manila Folder, Handset Phone, Magnifying Glass and Binoculars, Envelopes, Wrenches and Gears, Microphones, Photography, Televisions, Carbon Copies and Blueprints — are the subject of Hanselman's post on icons that are near or past retirement age, whose continued use is likely to make them iconic glyphs whose origins are shrouded in mystery to many.
32954129
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Apple may soon begin production of a full-blown HDTV, dubbed iTV by Apple watchers, according to the Terry Gou, CEO of Apple's main hardware supplier Foxconn, in a brief interview with the newspaper China Daily. The newspaper reports that the device will feature "aluminum construction, Siri, and FaceTime video calling" and will be manufactured by a 50-50 joint venture between Foxconn and the Japanese manufacturer Sharp; other details, including the schedule, were notably absent. Apple's spokesperson has declined comment. So it's not clear how solid this "scoop" is.
32951687
submission
vawarayer writes:
Students in Canadian province of Québec have been on strike for the past 3 months, demonstrating against tuition hikes. It is reported to be the longest student strike in the province. Demonstrators have shown to be somewhat creative in order to get the government's attention, namely protesting semi-nude and blocking access to the busiest bridge in the country.
In the latest attempt to make the front page, four students face terrorist-related charges. They are suspected of smoke-bombing Montréal's underground subway system (metro), that caused havoc across the island's public transit system.
32950653
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Shared in last quarter's FreeBSD status report are developer plans to have LLVM/Clang become the default compiler and to deprecate GCC. Clang can now build most packages and suit well for their BSD needs. They also plan to have a full BSD-licensed C++11 stack in FreeBSD 10.
32948405
submission
Okian Warrior writes:
A Milford CT man was pulled over when a state police car radioactivity scanner flagged his car as being radioactive.
The man had been given a cardiac exam using radioactive dye, and had a note from his physician attesting to this, but this raises questions about the legality.
Given that it it not illegal to own or purchase or transport radioactive materials (within limits for hobbyist use), should the police be allowed to stop and search vehicles which show a slight level of radioactivity?
32947923
submission
cyph3rpunk writes:
My work involves making countless presentations. Sometimes all i need is a few quick slides, making it with PowerPoint (standard IT issued software) is tedious. I am looking for a tablet on which I can sketch slides and save it as a slide/image and show as presentation. If approved and we decide to go ahead with the format, I could then translate the work in PowerPoint.
