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Censorship

Submission + - Google Says It Won't 'Manually' Review YouTube Vids for Infringement (wired.com) 1

Submitted by thomst
thomst writes: David Kravets of Wired's Threat Level blog reports that Google has clarified its change in policy on automatic takedowns of YouTube videos for copyright infringement. On Wednesday, Thabet Alfishawi, rights management product manager for YouTube, said in a blog post that Google had "improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed.” In its clarification, Google now says that videos flagged by its Content ID algorithm will be placed in a queue for "content owners" to review, if they decide to do so. In other words, the "manual review" is entirely optional, and the review, if any, will be done by the "content owner", rather than by Google itself — all of which begs the classic question, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Space

Submission + - Boeing proposes using gas clouds to bring down orbital debris (gizmag.com) 1

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Boeing has filed a patent for a method of disposing of dead satellites and other debris orbiting the earth by hitting them with a puff of gas. The method, which is still at the conceptual stage, is designed to slow down satellites, forcing them to re-enter the atmosphere without sending up more space junk that itself will need disposing of. The idea is to send a small satellite into orbit containing a gas generator. This generator can be a tank of cryogenic gas, such as xenon or krypton, or a device designed to vaporize a heavy metal or some relatively heavy elements like fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine. This gas would be released as a cloud in the same orbit as the debris, but traveling in the opposite direction.

Submission + - Electric cars could be a threat to the environment (bbc.co.uk) 3

Submitted by another random user
another random user writes: Electric cars might pollute much more than petrol or diesel-powered cars, according to new research. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology study found greenhouse gas emissions rose dramatically if coal was used to produce the electricity. Electric car factories also emitted more toxic waste than conventional car factories, their report in the Journal of Industrial Energy said.

"The global warming potential from electric vehicle production is about twice that of conventional vehicles."

In addition, producing batteries and electric motors requires a lot of toxic minerals such as nickel, copper and aluminium. Hence, the acidification impact is much greater than that of conventional car production.

In regions where fossil fuels are the main sources of power, electric cars offer no benefits and may even cause more harm, the report said.

"It is counterproductive to promote electric vehicles in regions where electricity is primarily produced from lignite, coal or even heavy oil combustion."

Submission + - Stolen Maple Syrup found and returned to strategic reserve (go.com)

Submitted by bmxeroh
bmxeroh writes: Remember the tragic maple syrup heist? Police have seized more than 600 barrels of maple syrup they say are related to the missing syrup. It was transported back to Quebec via a 16 tractor trailer, heavily guarded (and presumably heavily armed) convoy Wednesday.
Google

Submission + - FTC Releases Google Privacy Audit, Blacks Out The Details (securityledger.com)

Submitted by
chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: "Google could tell you about its privacy practices except, well....they're private. That's the conclusion privacy advocates are drawing after the Federal Trade Commission took a black marker to an independent audit of the company's privacy practices before releasing it to the group EPIC in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Security Ledger is reporting that the FTC released a copy of a Price Waterhouse Coopers audit of Google that was mandated as part of a settlement with the FTC over complaints following a 2010 complaint by EPIC over privacy violations in Google Buzz, a now-defunct social networking experiment. However, the agency acceded to Google requests to redact descriptions of the search giant’s internal procedures and the design of its privacy program."
Network

Submission + - Pisces vs Tor: Improved onion routing using Facebook & social media validati (patexia.com)

Submitted by
ericjones12398
ericjones12398 writes: "Imagine a future where Facebook could actually help you become more anonymous online. Where the more people you connect with online, the safer you are. Where your vast social network acts as a cushion between you and malicious users. If the team behind Pisces has its way, this unlikely scenario could actually become a reality."
China

Submission + - Will Your Next iPhone Be Built By Robots (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Foxconn has ambitious plans to deploy a million-robot army on its assembly lines. But while robots already perform some basic tasks, when it comes to the more delicate assembly work, humans still have the edge. George Zhang, senior principal scientist with ABB, a major vendor of industrial robots, thinks Foxconn will eventually replace human workers for much of its electronic assembly, but probably not in time for the iPhone 6. For now, humans are still a cheaper and more practical choice."
Windows

Submission + - FedEx CIO Sees Analytics, Sensors, Windows 8 as the Future (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "According to FedEx CIO Rob Carter, that need to analyze events in real time has resulted in an effort to “radically” decompose monolithic applications into sets of core granular services, which the company will then mash into any number of analytics applications. The ultimate goal: a matrix of IT services that functions with the speed and flexibility of a brain, freeing FedEx from a system dependent on files strewn across any number of databases kept on disk storage systems too slow to support advanced, real-time analytic applications.

Much of FedEx’s data comes from sensors, including a new SensaWare service that involves placing active sensors inside boxes containing high-value merchandise. Rather than wait to be scanned, these sensors actively send out telemetry data covering everything from the package’s traveling speed to whether any light has penetrated its packaging (the latter would suggest some sort of issue has occurred).

Longer term, Carter expects to make all that data more readily available via application programming interfaces (APIs) that would allow customers to apply their own analytics applications against the data. Within FedEx, the company’s applications are all connected to a common message bus that allows applications to publish and subscribe to any source of relevant data.

Those capabilities will prove critical as modern enterprise applications evolve to broker data between services. In fact, it’s a core capability embedded in Windows 8. “This is one reason we’re actually excited about a new Windows platform in a very long time,” Carter said. Because the operating system now manages the brokering between sources of data, the complexity of building composite applications that access multiple data should be significantly reduced."
Science

Submission + - Humans Have Been Responsible for Greenhouse Gases Since the Roman Empire (medicaldaily.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At this point, greenhouse gas emissions, and humans' culpability for them, are as close to a fact as science can get. Researchers had assumed that humans' role in creating greenhouse gases began in during the Industrial Revolution. But Celia Sapart, from the Netherlands' Utrecht University, and her colleagues have found evidence that humans have played a role in the creation of greenhouse gas emissions since the time of the Roman Empire.
What's more, they believe that their findings may mean that scientists should rethink climate change models that did not take human involvement into consideration before the nineteenth century.

Submission + - Recording of Recently Shut Down Telemarketers in Action (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Just yesterday, the FTC, in conjunction with other government agencies, shut down an international telemarketing scam. A recent video has surfaced showing them in action, trying to scam one of the principals of a Canadian web start-up. Watch the scammers lie through their teeth to convince their "victim" that they need to buy a lifetime subscription to their anti-virus product.
Microsoft

Submission + - The website for B&N's new Nook Media sub already belongs to someone else (the-digital-reader.com)

Submitted by Nate the greatest
Nate the greatest writes: Do you remember when Netflix decided to spin off the DVD service as Qwikster, only they forgot to check the related Twitter account first? B&N didn't quite goof that badly today, but they came close. It turns out NookMedia.com is registered to a Swedish software developer, and so is the Twitter handle. Mattias Hallqvist could not be reached for comment so we don't know yet of he likes being the new face of B&N ebook efforts.
Open Source

Submission + - Linux 3.7 Kernel to Support Multiple ARM Platforms (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The yet to be released Linux 3.7 kernel is getting exciting by the day prior to its release as it has been announced that the kernel will be supporting multiple-ARM System on Chips (SoCs) / platforms. Up until now there is a separate Linux kernel build for each of the ARM platform or SoCs, which is one of the several problems when it comes to ARM based Linux. The merging of ARM multi-platform support into Linux 3.7 will now put an end to this problem thus enabling the new kernel to not only target multiple platforms but, also be more in line with its x86 counterpart.
Space

Submission + - New study shows Universe still expanding on schedule 1

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "A century ago, astronomers (including Edwin Hubble) discovered the Universe was expanding. Using the same methods — but this time with observations from an orbiting infrared space telescope — a new study confirms this expansion, and nails the rate with higher precision than done before. If you're curious, the expansion rate found was 74.3 +/- 2.1 kilometers per second per megaparsec — almost precisely in line with previous messureents."

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