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Submission + - Cancer takes one on the chin, courtesy of a six year old girl (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For decades, one of cancer's most powerful weapons has been to corrupt the human immune system. Finally, researchers in Philadelphia have developed a way to turn that weapon against certain cancers, and potentially open the door to a whole new generation of therapies for all manner of cancers

Submission + - Team GhostShell claims to have hacked Pentagon, NASA, Federal Reserve (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Team GhostShell has claimed to have hacked and stolen data from a number of high profile companies and organizations including the likes of NASA, World Airport Transfers, the Pentagon and the Federal Reserve. The hacking collective has dumped links to the data containing over 1.6 million accounts seemingly obtained through an SQL injection attack and upon closer look at some of these files reveal information such as names, email addresses, home addresses, mailing lists, passwords, defense material tests and analysis notes and the likes. Some of the files even contain more sensitive information like administrator email addresses their passwords, hashed password and telephone numbers. #ProjectWhiteFox, through which the team carried out its latest activities, is said to be the hacking collective’s last hacking project of this year.
Technology

Submission + - LuminAR Bulb Transforms Any Surface Into a Touch Screen (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: We've all seen gigantic touch screens on the news or in movies, but what if you could achieve the same type of interface by simply replacing the bulb in your desk lamp? That's the idea behind the LuminAR, developed by a team led by Natan Linder at the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group. It combines a Pico-projector, camera, and wireless computer to project interactive images onto any surface – and is small enough to screw into a standard light fixture.
Government

Submission + - UK IPv6 Promotion Body Gives Up The Ghost (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "A government backed body that was supposed to promote IPv6 has shut down, saying it can't do its job unless the government shows some support for the new Internet protocol. The volunteers on 6UK said that without any real government support organisations would find no reason to move to IPv6. “It beggars belief that you can’t access any UK government website using IPv6,” said the group's spokesman Philip Sheldrake."
Android

Submission + - Google app verification service detects only 15% of infected apps (ncsu.edu)

Submitted by ShipLives
ShipLives writes: Researchers have tested Google's app verification service (included in Android 4.2 last month), and found that it performed very poorly at identifying malware in apps. Specifically, the app verification service identified only ~15% of known malware in testing — whereas existing third-party security apps identified between 51% and 100% of known malware in testing.
Microsoft

Submission + - Outrage at Microsoft offshoring tax in the UK (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Master Of Ninja
Master Of Ninja writes: After the ongoing row about companies not paying a fair share of tax in the United Kingdom, and with companies such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google being in the headlines, focus has now turned to Microsoft. Whilst the tax arrangements are strictly legal, there has been outrage on how companies are avoiding paying their fair share of tax generated in the country.
China

Submission + - Russia And China Withdraw Bid for Internet Control (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "Russia, China and other nations have withdrawn proposals to take control over the Internet within their borders. The proposals, handed to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) on Friday, caused widespread dismay and protest. The WCIT event in Dubai, run by the UN agency ITU, is working on new International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) which are due for their first revision since the emergence of the mass Internet. The line-up of nations wanting to formalise their power to restrict the Internet included Russia, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt. Their proposal has been withdrawn without explanation, an ITU spokesperson confirmed."
Security

Submission + - The zero-day bounty hunters (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Fewer than 1% of the exploits detected by Microsoft in the first half of last year were against so-called zero-day vulnerabilities – those that were previously unknown. That figure raises a question: if the vast majority of real-world exploits are “known threats”, what makes zero days so valuable that they have spawned a hidden industry of bounty-hunting researchers? The zero-day bounty hunters looks at the big money involved in finding zero-day vulnerabilities, what kind of people — with good and bad intentions — make it their business to look for them, and whether offering "bounties" is actually the wisest way for the security industry to handle the issue. It also includes an interview with a professional security researcher and ethical hacker about how and why he does what he does."
Power

Submission + - Nano-sandwich material claimed to boost solar cell efficiency by 175 percent (gizmag.com) 1

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: One of the main reasons that solar cells aren’t more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity is because much of that sunlight is reflected off the cell, or can’t be fully absorbed by it. A new sandwich-like material created by researchers at Princeton University, however, is claimed to dramatically address that problem – by minimizing reflection and increasing absorption, it reportedly boosts the efficiency of organic solar cells by 175 percent.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Chinese Firm Wins Bid for US-Backed Battery Maker

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: On September 13, 2010, President Obama called A123 Systems from the Oval Office to congratulate them on opening the nation’s first manufacturing facility to mass-produce electric vehicle batteries, which the White House noted was made possible by a $249 million Recovery Act grant the company received the prior August. 'When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future,' the President said, 'I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: Made in America. And that's what you guys are helping to make happen.' But on Saturday, the assets of A123 Systems were auctioned off to the Wanxiang Group, a large Chinese auto parts maker. Wanxiang agreed to pay $256 million for A123's automotive and commercial operations, including its three factories in the United States. Forbes reports that A123's stock, which closed at 7 cents a share on Friday, is now worthless.
Australia

Submission + - Laser prototype improves bomb detection (cio.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia have developed a prototype laser device capable of detecting tiny traces of explosive vapour, an invention that has the potential to put bomb sniffer dogs out of a job. The prototype – a pulsed, quantum laser-based, cavity ring-down spectrometer – is being tested at the US government’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico."
Apple

Submission + - Australian Police Warn Against Usage of Apple iOS 6 Maps (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Police in Australia have issued a warning asking motorists not to use Apple iOS 6 maps to find their way as it has been noticed that quite a few motorists have been directed to wrong locations where there is no water supply. The Victoria state police stated "a number of motorists were directed off the beaten track in recent weeks", and that the location of town of Mildura on Apple maps is shown to be in the middle of Murray-Sunset National Park which is not the case as the correct location of town is about 70 km from the spot on Apple maps. The reason this warning needs to be taken on serious note is that visitors to the national park are advised to carry enough drinking water or be well-versed with method of making untreated water drinkable.
IBM

Submission + - IBM creates first cheap, commercially viable, electronic-photonic integrated chi (extremetech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After more than a decade of research, and a proof of concept in 2010, IBM Research has finally cracked silicon nanophotonics (or CMOS-integrated nanophotonics, CINP, to give its full name). IBM has become the first company to integrate electrical and optical components on the same chip, using a standard 90nm semiconductor process. These integrated, monolithic chips will allow for cheap chip-to-chip and computer-to-computer interconnects that are thousands of times faster than current state-of-the-art copper and optical networks. Where current interconnects are generally measured in gigabits per second, IBM’s new chip is already capable of shuttling data around at terabits per second, and should scale to peta- and exabit speeds.

Submission + - Behavior of Birds Depends on Their Hatching Order

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new study looks at the behavior of birds and found the hatching order of birds influences how they behave in adulthood.
The study was conducted by Dr. Ian Hartley and Dr. Mark Mainwaring (LEC), researchers at the University of Lancaster Environment Center. The researchers noticed that the youngest members of the zebra finch broods were more adventurous than their older siblings in later life.
Nintendo

Submission + - Wii U web browser's HTML5 gaming capabilities (lostdecadegames.com)

Submitted by richtaur
richtaur writes: Following Microsoft's addition to Internet Explorer on the Xbox 360, Nintendo has launched a web browser on their next-generation Wii U console. Much different from Opera's Internet Channel browser on Wii, this new innocuously titled "Internet Browser" is based on Webkit.

In an article The Wii U web browser's HTML5 gaming capabilities, a small HTML5 game studio does a deep-dive of what the browser is capable of. No audio support, no ability to save state, and zero WebGL support are some of the browser's many issues. The upshot? Some games are quite playable. With a little more development effort, there's some real potential for Nintendo's console to tap into a vast library of HTML5 games.
Power

Submission + - US Nuclear Industry Plans 'Rescue Wagon' to Avert Meltdowns

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "AP reports that if disaster strikes a US nuclear power plant, the utility industry wants the ability to fly in heavy-duty equipment from regional hubs to stricken reactors to avert a meltdown providing another layer of defense in case a Fukushima-style disaster destroys a nuclear plant's multiple backup systems. "It became very clear in Japan that utilities became quickly overwhelmed," says Joe Pollock, vice president for nuclear operations at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group that is spearheading the effort. US nuclear plants already have backup safety systems and are supposed to withstand the worst possible disasters in their regions, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes. But planners can be wrong. The industry plan, called FLEX, is the nuclear industry's method for meeting new US Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules that will force 65 plants in the US to get extra emergency equipment on site and store it protectively. The FLEX program is supposed to help nuclear plants handle the biggest disasters. Under the plan, plant operators can summon help from the regional centers in Memphis and Phoenix. In addition to having several duplicate sets of plant emergency gear, industry officials say the centers will likely have heavier equipment that could include an emergency generator large enough to power a plant's emergency cooling systems, equipment to treat cooling water and extra radiation protection gear for workers. Federal regulators must still decide whether to approve the plans submitted by individual plants. "They need to show us not just that they have the pump, but that they've done all the appropriate designing and engineering so that they have a hookup for that pump," says NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. "They're not going to be trying to figure out, 'Where are we going to plug this thing in?'"
IOS

Submission + - Australian police warn against using Apple Maps (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Australian police are warning people not to rely on Apple's new mobile mapping application after several motorists ended up in a semi-arid national park where temperatures can reach 46C and there is no water supply. Police in the town of Mildura, Victoria, issued a statement saying they've responded to several drivers who became stranded in Murray Sunset National Park. Apple's Maps application, introduced in iOS 6, shows Mildura near part of the park when it is actually located about 70 km to the northeast, according to police. Some motorists have been stranded for a day without food or water, walking long distances through dangerous terrain to get phone reception, police said."
Australia

Submission + - Australian police warn that Apple Maps could get someone killed (abc.net.au)

Submitted by jsherring
jsherring writes: "Police in Victoria, Australia warn that Apple's glitch-filled Maps app could get someone killed, after motorists looking for the Victorian city of Mildura were instead guided to a wilderness area." Relying on Apple Maps to navigate through rural Australia seems rather foolish but it has become common practice to rely on GPS navigation. Besides reverting to google maps, perhaps Apple should provide strong warnings to use other navigation sources if navigating to remote locations.
Australia

Submission + - Australian Police Rescue Motorists Lost In Forest By Apple Maps (gizmodo.com.au)

Submitted by lukehopewell1
lukehopewell1 writes: There's no doubt that Apple Maps needs to be fixed, but the sooner the better according to Australian police, who have been wading into a remote national park to save motorists steered deep into the forest by the new iOS 6 navigation software.

Police say that several motorists have already been rescued, adding that some had to walk for up to 24 hours through the forest just to find cell signal.

Motorists are getting lost in the park because Apple Maps has mislabelled the location of a regional town that is actually situated 70 kilometres away.

Until Apple fixes the issue, Australian police are telling users not to navigate using iOS 6 maps.

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