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Submission + - Amazon charges sales tax on "shipping and handling" (latimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: By coincidence I noticed this myself the other night, and ended up ordering something from a supplier in Arizona, rather than Amazon, to avoid the sales tax. Now here is an article about it in the Los Angeles Times.
Robotics

Submission + - First Shanghai Maker Carnival (usabledevices.com) 1

Submitted by
spanner888
spanner888 writes: "The First Shanghai Maker Carnival was held this weekend in conjunction with a Creation Exhibition, an arts and crafts expo with about 200 exhibitors. Makers attended from Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen and visitors came from around China.

Article & photos: http://usabledevices.com/2012/11/03/first-shanghai-maker-carnival/

More photos are in this post: http://usabledevices.com/2012/11/03/first-shanghai-maker-carnival-day-2/

Videos are in this post: http://usabledevices.com/2012/11/03/shanghai-maker-carnival-2012-videos/

Other photos can be found in this thread: http://groups.google.com/group/xinchejian/browse_thread/thread/8b52af93f8b5244d"

Submission + - Electric Velomobiles: almost as fast as cars, but 80 times more efficient (lowtechmagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Both the velomobile and the electric bicycle increase the limited range of the cyclist — the former optimises aerodynamics and ergonomics, while the latter assists muscle power with an electric motor fuelled by a battery. The electric velomobile combines both approaches, and so maximises the range of the cyclist — so much so that it is able to replace most, if not all, automobile trips. A quarter of the existent wind turbines in the US would suffice to power as many electric velomobiles as there are Americans.
Programming

Submission + - Why Coding at Fifty May be Nifty 4

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Enough with the dadgum naysayers. Google's Vivek Haldar lists some good reasons for why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age). Haldar's list would probably get a thumbs-up from billionaire SAS CEO Jim Goodnight, who had this to say about coding when interviewed at age 56: 'I would be happy if I just stayed in my office and programmed all day, to tell you the truth. That is my one real love in life is programming. Programming is sort of like getting to work a puzzle all day long. I actually enjoy it. It's a lot of fun. It's not even work to me. It's just enjoyable. You get to shut out all your other thoughts and just concentrate on this little thing you're trying to do, to make work it. It's nice, very enjoyable.'
BSD

Submission + - Dragonfly BSD 3.2 released (dragonflybsd.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dragonfly BSD recently announced the release of version 3.2 of their operating system. Improvements include: USB4BSD, a second-generation USB stack; merging of a GSoC project to provide CPU topology awareness to the scheduler, giving a nice boost for hyperthreading Intel CPUs; and last but not least, a new largely rewritten scheduler.

Some background is in order for the last one. PostgreSQL 9.3 will move from SysV shared memory to mmap for its shared memory needs. It turned out that the switch much hurts its performance on the BSDs. Matthew Dillon was fast to respond with a search for bottlenecks and got the performance up to par with Linux.
United Kingdom

Submission + - Apple Hides Samsung Apology So It Can't Be Seen Without Scrolling

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple today posted its second Samsung apology to its UK website, complying with requests by the UK Court of Appeal to say its original apology was inaccurate and link to a new statement. As users on Hacker News and Reddit point out, however, Apple modified its website recently to ensure the message is never displayed without visitors having to scroll down to the bottom first.

Submission + - How to become informed in judicial elections? 1

Submitted by
yincrash
yincrash writes: "Today I've been looking up information on local elections and have found it virtually impossible to determine information on judicial elections, both with regards to information on the candidate, and what makes a good judge. Is there a good way to find information on these candidates? chooseyourjudges.org seems to agree that this is basically an impossible task. What do slashdotters do in an information vacuum? Just abstain from voting? Write-in something in protest?"
Twitter

Submission + - Exit Polling Via Twitter (tweetyourvote.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Using social media to track the election, twitter users can participate in online exit polling via twitter by tweeting #TYV Obama or #TYV Romney after voting. The results are available on http://tweetyourvote.net./

Submission + - Tough guy 'Taliban Khan' (torontosun.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The story of Mr. Imran Khan's questioning by the USCIS was reported Slashdot with the tag line that he was questioned due to his opposition to drones. That seems to be fabrication by Mr. Imran Khan himself. I request you to run this story in the interest of fair play so that other side of the story is heard.

"An official who observed the interrogation process told me Khan sat timidly with his head lowered and hands clasped while he received a “dressing down” about potentially violating the limitations of his visitor’s visa to the U.S.

He said there was no talk about Khan’s opposition to U.S. attack drones, as the politician later claimed after the fact.

My source, tells me the real concern was that Khan had told passport control he was coming to the U.S. to visit family and friends, without specifying his planned fundraising and political activities."
Education

Submission + - Constant technology use may hamper kids' ability to learn (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "Scholars who study the role of media in society say no long-term studies have been done that adequately show how and if student attention span has changed because of the use of digital technology. But there is mounting indirect evidence that constant use of technology can affect behavior, particularly in developing brains, because of heavy stimulation and rapid shifts in attention."
Programming

Submission + - A Bare Metal Raspberry Pi Course (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: This is a course designed to explain the real basics of computing — there is nothing between you and the hardware. You write an ARM assembly language program and a basic loader gets it running on the Raspberry Pi. It starts out flashing the LED and programming the GPIO directly. From here we move on to programming direct to the screen. This is more than just working with a memory-mapped graphics facility. The graphics chip is as powerful as the CPU and so working with it is a little more complicated. Several lessons work up from random dots to text.The final lessons deal with USB I/O and after two lessons you have a keyboard and screen program that can be used as a dumb terminal.Overall this looks like a good way to get back to basics, and a Raspberry Pi is cheap enough to buy one to just play with ARM assembler.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/freshers/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/
Cellphones

Submission + - Verizon Worker Arrested For Copying Customer's Nude Pictures (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: El Reg reports that two employees at a Verizon store in Florida are facing charges after making copies of a customer's naked pictures while helping her transfer data from an old phone to a new one. The two employees later offered to show the pictures to another customer who happened to be the woman's friend. The woman and her friend filed a police report. The police quickly got a warrant to search the store and found copies of the pictures on multiple devices there. One of the employees, Gregory Lampert, was arrested charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor. The other employee, Joshua Stuart, is no longer in Florida, but will face charges if he comes back.
Bitcoin

Submission + - European Central Bank casts wary eye towards Bitcoin (bitinstant.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Erik Voorhees blogs for bitinstant.com:

On Oct 29, 2012, the European Central Bank (ECB) released an official (and very nicely prepared) report called “Virtual Currency Schemes.” The 55-page report looks at several facets of what virtual currencies are, how they’re being used, and what they can do.

As it happens, the term “Bitcoin” appears 183 times. In fact, roughly a quarter of the whole report is specifically dedicated to Bitcoin and it’s probably a safe assumption that Bitcoin’s growth over the past year was the catalyst for producing this study in the first place.

The report from the ECB concludes, in part:

+ Virtual currencies fall within central banks’ responsibility due to their characteristics

+ Virtual currencies could have a “negative impact on the reputation of central banks”

Could this be the first step towards regulation of the digital currency?
Microsoft

Submission + - Not One Microsoft Product On Kaspersky's Top 10 Vulnerabilities List 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Security firm Kaspersky has released its latest IT Threat Evolution report. There were some interesting findings in the report, as always, but the most interesting thing that stuck out was all the way at the bottom: "Microsoft products no longer feature among the Top 10 products with vulnerabilities. This is because the automatic updates mechanism has now been well developed in recent versions of Windows OS."
Supercomputing

Submission + - how we built a supercomputer in 24hrs (youtube.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Time lapse video of students and postdocs at the University of Zurich constructing the zBox4 supercomputer. The machine has a theoretical compute capacity of ~1% of the human brain and will be used for simulating the formation of stars, planets and galaxies.
KDE

Submission + - Linus Torvalds Tries KDE, Likes It So Far (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Linus Torvalds has never been a big fan of Gnome owing its extreme simplicity. Even Gnome 3.x failed to impress the father of the Linux kernel. He has now given KDE a try after a long time. Linus using your software is double edged sword, it cuts both ways especially if Linus doesn't like it, get ready for the harshest, yet the most honest and useful criticism. Interestingly Linus has so far liked KDE and for one simple reason — But ah, the ability to configure things. And I have wobbly windows again. This should make KDE developers a bit happier.
Transportation

Submission + - Hyundai Overstated MPG on Over 1 Million Cars

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Reuters reports that Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Motors conceded that they overstated the fuel economy on more than 1 million recently sold vehicles, and agreed to compensate owners for the additional fuel costs after the EPA found the errors in 13 Kia and Hyundai models from the 2011 to 2013 model years. The findings were a blow to the two carmakers who have centered their marketing campaigns on superior fuel economy. "Given the importance of fuel efficiency for all us, we are extremely sorry for these errors," says John Krafcik, head of Hyundai Motor America. "When we say to Hyundai owners, 'We've got your back,' that's an assurance we don't take lightly." The mileage on most labels will be reduced by 1 to 2 miles per gallon, with the largest adjustment being a 6-mpg highway reduction for one version of the Kia Soul, the EPA said. Hyundai previously touted the fact that many of its models get 40 miles per gallon on the highway. Now three Hyundai models, the Elantra, Accent and Veloster, as well as the Kia Rio fall short of that mark as will the Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima hybrids. "The fact that the companies' ballyhooed 40 mpg cars are no longer members of that august club...will be something that haunts the companies for a long time to come," says Edmunds car editor John O'Dell."
China

Submission + - China's stealth fighter flight test successful (wsj.com)

Submitted by vencs
vencs writes: China has successfully tested its second stealth fighter, a smaller, twin-engine jet that military analysts said could potentially allow it to one day fly missions from an aircraft carrier. Military analysts said the new jet's design suggested the People's Liberation Army might use it to arm and escort aircraft carriers like the Liaoning , which was officially deployed last month. Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of Kanwa Asian Defense Monthly, said the new prototype appears to have borrowed features from the US Air Force's twin-engine F-22 and US Navy's single-engine F-35C.

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