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Submission + - 2012 another record-setter, fits climate forecasts (foxnews.com) 1

Submitted by Layzej
Layzej writes: Fox News reports: In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes. As 2012 began, winter in the U.S. went AWOL. Spring and summer arrived early with wildfires, blistering heat and drought. And fall hit the eastern third of the country with the ferocity of Superstorm Sandy. Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records. 2012 is on track to be the warmest year on record in the United States. Worldwide, the average through November suggests it will be the eighth warmest since global record-keeping began in 1880 and will likely beat 2011 as the hottest La Nina year on record. America's heartland lurched from one extreme to the other without stopping at "normal." Historic flooding in 2011 gave way to devastating drought in 2012. But the most troubling climate development this year was the melting at the top of the world. Summer sea ice in the Arctic shrank to 18 percent below the previous record low.
These are "clearly not freak events," but "systemic changes," said climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany. "With all the extremes that, really, every year in the last 10 years have struck different parts of the globe, more and more people absolutely realize that climate change is here and already hitting us."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Do coding standards make a difference? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Every shop I've ever worked in has had a "Coding Style" document that dictates things like camelCase vs underscored_names, placement of curly braces, tabs vs spaces, etc... As a result, I've lost hundreds of hours in code reviews because some pedant was more interested in picking nits over whitespace than actually reviewing my algorithms. Are there any documents or studies that show a net productivity gain for having these sorts of standards? If not, why do we have them? We live in the future, why don't our tools enforce these standards automagically?
Windows

Submission + - Animated Rant about Windows 8 from former tech journalist. (youtube.com)

Submitted by
Funksaw
Funksaw writes: "Back in 2007, I wrote three articles on Ubuntu 6, MacOSX 10.4, and Windows Vista which were all featured on Slashdot. Now, with the release of Windows 8, I took a different tactic and produced an animated video. Those expecting me to bust out the performance tests and in-depth use of the OS are going to be dissapointed. Whilt that was my intention coming into the project, I couldn't even use Windows 8 long enough to get to the in-depth technical tests. In my opinion, Windows 8 is so horribly broken that it should be recalled."

Submission + - Atmospheric Vortex Engine creates tornadoes to generate electricity (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tornadoes generally evoke the destructive force of nature at its most awesome. However, what if all that power could be harnessed to produce cheaper and more efficient electricity? This is just what Canadian engineer Louis Michaud proposes to achieve, with an invention dubbed the âoeAtmospheric Vortex Engineâ (or AVE) — is this possible for real ?
Linux

Submission + - GarageGames Starts IndieGoGo Campaign to Port Torque 3D to Linux (indiegogo.com)

Submitted by
iamnothing
iamnothing writes: "GarageGames is heading to IndieGoGo to port Torque 3D to Linux! The campaign is centered around hiring a dedicated developer or team to port Torque 3D to Linux. The primary target is Ubuntu 32bit with other flavors of Linux as stretch goals. All work will be done in the public eye under our Github repository under the MIT license.

Check out the campaign!"
The Military

Submission + - DARPA's Headless Robotic Mule Takes Load Off Warfighters

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "If robots are ever really going to carry the equipment of US soldiers and Marines, they're going to have to act more like pack animals. Now Terri Moon Cronk reports that DARPA’s semiautonomous Legged Squad Support System — also known as the LS3 — will carry 400 pounds of warfighter equipment and walk 20 miles at a time also acting as an auxiliary power source for troops to recharge batteries for radios and handheld devices while on patrol. “It’s about solving a real military problem: the incredible load of equipment our soldiers and Marines carry in Afghanistan today,” says Army Lt. Col. Joseph K. Hitt, program manager in DARPA’s tactical technology office. The robot’s sensors allow it to navigate around obstacles at night, maneuver in urban settings, respond to voice commands, and gauge distances and directions. The LS3 can also distinguish different forms of vegetation when walking through fields and around bushes and avoid logs and rocks with intelligent foot placement on rough terrain (video). The robot's squad leader can issue 10 basic commands to tell the robot to do such things as stop, sit, follow him tightly, follow him on the corridor, and go to specific coordinates. Darpa figures that it's illogical to make a soldier hand over her rucksack to a robotic beast of burden if she's then got to be preoccupied with "joysticks and computer screens" to guide it forward. "That adds to the cognitive burden of the soldier," Hitt explains. "We need to make sure that the robot also is smart, like a trained animal.""

Submission + - College Textbook Recommendation for Web Dev Class? (acu.edu)

Submitted by PHPNerd
PHPNerd writes: I'm a college computer science professor. Next semester I'll be teaching Web Development 2. Due to how quickly the web is changing, every year I have to find a new book (though some years I don't even use one). Last year I used HTML5 For Web Designers by the good people at A List Apart. I used it because it's short, easy to understand, and covers essential pieces of HTML5. Any suggestions on good textbooks or web resources focusing on bleeding-edge HTML5 and CSS3?
Earth

Submission + - Coral Reefs Could Be Decimated by 2100 (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Nearly every coral reef could be dying by 2100 if current carbon dioxide emission trends continue, according to a new review of major climate models from around the world. The only way to maintain the current chemical environment in which reefs now live, the study suggests, would be to deeply cut emissions as soon as possible. It may even become necessary to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, say with massive tree-planting efforts or machines.
Security

Submission + - Taking Sense Away: Confessions of a Former TSA Screener (wordpress.com)

Submitted by OverTheGeicoE
OverTheGeicoE writes: TSA gets discussed on Slashdot from time to time, usually negatively. Have you ever wondered about the TSA screeners' perspective? Taking Sense Away is a blog, allegedly written by a former TSA screener, offering insider perspectives on TSA topics. For example, there's the Insider's TSA Dictionary, whose entries are frequently about the code screeners use to discuss attractive female passengers (like 'Code Red,' 'Fanny Pack,' and 'Hotel Bravo'). Another posting explains what goes on in private screening rooms, which the author claims is nothing compared to screener conduct in backscatter image operator rooms. Apparently what happens in the IO room stays in the IO room. Today's posting covers how TSA employees feel about working for 'a despised agency'. For many the answer is that they hate working for 'the laughing stock of America’s security apparatus,' try to hide that they work for TSA, and want to transfer almost anywhere else ASAP.
Google

Submission + - Why Google hired Ray Kurzweil (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nataly Kelly writes in the Huffington Post about Google's strategy of hiring Ray Kurzweil and how the company likely intends to use language translation to revolutionize the way we share information:

"Google Translate is not just a tool that enables people on the web to translate information. It's a strategic tool for Google itself.
The implications of this are vast and go beyond mere language translation. One implication might be a technology that can translate from one generation to another. Or how about one that slows down your speech or turns up the volume for an elderly person with hearing loss? That enables a stroke victim to use the clarity of speech he had previously? That can pronounce using your favorite accent? That can convert academic jargon to local slang? It's transformative. In this system, information can walk into one checkpoint as the raucous chant of a 22-year-old American football player and walk out as the quiet whisper of a 78-year-old Albanian grandmother."
Encryption

Submission + - This $299 Tool Cracks BitLocker, PGP, And TrueCrypt Disks In Real-Time 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Russian firm ElcomSoft on Thursday announced the release of Elcomsoft Forensic Disk Decryptor (EFDD), a new forensic tool that can reportedly access information stored in disks and volumes encrypted with desktop and portable versions of BitLocker, PGP, and TrueCrypt. EFDD runs on all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, as well as Windows 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The price tag isn’t outrageous, but EFDD will still set you back a solid $299.
United Kingdom

Submission + - UK Government to relax laws on digital copying (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
ChristianCooper
ChristianCooper writes: "BBC News reports today that making digital copies of "music, films and other copyrighted material for personal use" will be permitted under new legislation to be proposed by the UK Government. It would still not be permitted to pass these personal copies to friends or family, etc.

Since the Copyright, Designs and Patents act of 1988, the restriction on copying literary, musical, dramatic or artistic works was extended to "storing the work in any medium by electronic means" — this had the side effect of including activities such as ripping CDs onto portable music players, or transferring files between e-readers."
Google

Submission + - iOS 6 Adoption Rates Soar Following Google Maps Release (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "The Dec. 12 reinstatement of Google Maps on iOS has apparently been enough for some of those reticent users to finally make the upgrade to iOS 6. According to MoPub, the San Francisco-based mobile ad exchange that monitors more than 1 billion ad impressions a day and supports more than a dozen ad networks and 12,000 apps, there has been a 29 percent increase in unique iOS 6 users in the past five days following Google Maps' release on iOS. In fact, MoPub reports a 13 percent increase in iOS 6 users from last Monday to Wednesday alone, which would mean that nearly half of the converts to iOS 6 in the past week switched the very moment Google Maps' standalone app hit the App Store."
Hardware

Submission + - Magnetism flips heat flow (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Researchers have demonstrated that a magnetic field can control the flow of heat from from one body to another. First predicted nearly 50 years ago, the quantum effect might some day form the basis of a new generation of transistors that use heat rather than charge as the information carrier.
The research stems from the work of physicist Brian JosephsonSQUIDs), which are now sold commercially as ultra-sensitive magnetometers. In the latest work, researchers measured the devices’ thermal behaviour. The duo heated one end of a SQUID several micrometres long and monitored the temperature of an electrode connected to it. A SQUID consists of two y-shaped pieces of superconductor joined together to form a loop, but with two thin pieces of insulating material sandwiched in between. As the researchers varied the magnetic field passing through the loop, they found that the amount of heat flowing through the device also changed. The device worked by partly reversing the heat transfer, so that some would flow from the colder body to the warmer one."
Medicine

Submission + - Human Cloning Possible Within 50 Years, Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Claims (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Human cloning could happen within the next half century, claims a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.
Sir John Gurdon, the British developmental biologist whose research cloning frogs in the 1950s and 60s led to the later creation of Dolly the sheep in 1996, believes that human cloning could happen within the next 50 years.
He said that parents who lose their children to tragic accidents might be able to clone replacements in the next few decades.
Gurdon, who won this year's Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, said that while any attempts to clone a human would likely raise complex ethical issues, he believes that in the near future people would overcome their concerns if cloning became medically useful.
Privacy

Submission + - Government to spy on computers of the jobless (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Jobseekers will be offered the chance to look for work through the new Universal Jobmatch website, which automatically pairs them up with opportunities that suit their skills after scanning their CVs.

It will also allow employers to search for new workers among the unemployed and send messages inviting them to interviews.

However, their activities may also be tracked using devices known as "cookies", so their Job Centre advisers know how many searches they have been doing and whether they are turning down viable opportunities.

Iain Duncan-Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said the scheme would "revolutionise" the process of looking for work.

He said anyone without a job after signing up to the scheme would be lacking "imagination".
EU

Submission + - ACTA gets death certificate in Europe (ffii.org)

Submitted by Seeteufel
Seeteufel writes: The controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is now officially pronounced dead in the E.U. The European Parliament broadly rejected the Anti-Counterfeiting Agreement a while ago, but there was still a court case pending at the European Court of Justice about the legality of ACTA. The Commission was open about its intent to reintroduce ACTA raticication to the Parliament after a positive Court decision. Now we learn the Commission has withdrawn its questions to the Court.
AI

Submission + - China blocks VPN connections using machine learning algorithms?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The internet control in China seems to have been tightened recently, according to the Guardian [guardian.co.uk]. Several VPN providers claimed that the censorship system can "learn, discover and block" encrypted VPN protocols.

Using machine learning algorithms in protocol classification is not exactly a new topic in the field [scholar.google.com]. And given the fact that even the founding father of the "Great Firewall", Fan Bingxing [wikipedia.org] himself has also written a paper about utilizing machine learning algorithm in encrypted traffic analysis [ieee.org], it would be not suprising at all, if they are now starting to identify suspicious encrypted traffic using numerically efficient classifiers. [springer.com]

So the arm race between anti-censorship and surveillance technology goes on .
Censorship

Submission + - Japanese police charge 2channel founder over forum posts (japanprobe.com)

Submitted by identity0
identity0 writes: According to Japan Probe, Hiroyuki Nishimura, the founder of 2ch.net, has been charged with drug offenses by Japanese police over a forum post made on 2ch in 2010. He is not even accused of making the post, but of failure to have moderators delete it. The post apparently discussed drugs. 2ch.net (also called 2channel) is Japan's biggest forum, with over a million posts a day, of which the post in question was one. The site inspired image board 2chan.net(but is not directly related to it), which spawned copycat English site 4chan.net. More info at Slashdot Japan if you can read Japanese.

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