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Submission + - Options for FOSS remote support software? 1

Submitted by Albanach
Albanach writes: I'm sure I'm not alone in being asked to help friends and family with computer issues. These folk typically run Windows (everything from XP onward) or OS X (typically 10.4 onward). Naturally, desktop sharing is often much easier than trying to talk the other end through various steps. I've found free sites like join.me but they don't work with OS X 10.4, neither does the Chrome plugin. I'd also prefer not to compromise security by using a third party in the middle of the connection. Is there a good, free solution I can run on my linux box that supports old and new clients that run Windows, OS X and possibly linux? I'd love it if the users could simply bring their systems up to date, but that doesn't solve the third party issue and it's not easy when it requires a non-trivial RAM upgrade on a Mac Mini.
Transportation

Submission + - When Flying Was a Thrill 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Bob Greene writes that flying, with jammed-to-the-groaning-point cabins and torture-rack legroom; fees for everything from checking your bags to being handed a paltry package of food; and the endless, we'll-X-ray-you-to-within-an-inch-of-your-dignity security lines, is too often such a dreary, joy-sapping slog that it's difficult to remember that it was ever any other way. But back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s — even the 60s, flying was a big deal. When a family went on vacation by air, it was a major life event. "Traveling by air in those years wasn't like boarding a flying bus, the way it is today," says Christopher Lynch, author of "When Hollywood Landed at Chicago's Midway Airport," a celebration of the golden years of commercial air travel in the United States. "People didn't travel in flip-flops. I mean, no offense, Mister, but I don't want to see your toes." The trains were still king in those years and the airlines wanted to convince people that flying was safe. "People were afraid to fly," Lynch says. "And it was expensive. The airlines had to make people think it was something they should try." That's where Mike Rotunno came in, photographer-for-hire at Midway Airport in Chicago where cross-country flights in those years had to stop to refuel. His pictures of Hollywood stars as they got off the planes made air travel seem to be glamorous, sophisticated, civilized, and thrilling. "Think of his photos the next time you're shoehorned into a seat next to a fellow who's dripping the sloppy innards of his carry-on submarine sandwich onto your sleeve," writes Greene. "Air travel was once a treasured experience, exciting, exotic, something never to be forgotten. You, too, could travel like Elizabeth Taylor.""
The Internet

Submission + - Windows 8 bypasses and modifies the hosts file (ghacks.net) 8

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Windows 8 has been confirmed to not only ignore, but also modify the hosts file. As soon as a website that should be blocked is accessed, the corresponding entry in the hosts file is removed, even if the hosts file is read-only. The hosts file is a popular, cross-platform way of blocking access to certain domains, such as ad-serving websites, but now that Microsoft clearly wants to control your web browsing experience, the practice not be that cross-platform anymore.

Submission + - Assange Case: US "Does Not Recognise" International Law Re Diplomatic Assylum (foreignpolicy.com) 1

Submitted by TrueSatan
TrueSatan writes: Despite previously stating that it would not involve itself in the UK vs Equador dispute regarding Assange the US State Department declared today that the United States does not believe in the concept of ‘diplomatic asylum' as a matter of international law.

Following Equador's action in the Organisation of American States the US issued the following statement, "The United States is not a party to the 1954 OAS Convention on Diplomatic Asylum and does not recognize the concept of diplomatic asylum as a matter of international law," the office of Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in a Friday statement. "We believe this is a bilateral issue between Ecuador and the United Kingdom and that the OAS has no role to play in this matter."

  This is directly contrary to previous US positions where it has given diplomatic assylum to dissidents of other regimes for instance Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty who was granted refuge in the US embassy in Budapest Oct '56 -May '71.
Japan

Submission + - The Panic Over Fukushima (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Japan's nuclear accident was a great human tragedy, but its long-term health effects have been exaggerated—and the virtues of nuclear power remain, writes Richard Muller. 'In hindsight, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the policies enacted in the wake of the disaster in Japan—particularly the long-term evacuation of large areas and the virtual termination of the Japanese nuclear power industry—were expressions of panic. I would go further and suggest that these well-intended measures did far more harm than good, not least in limiting the prospects of a source of energy that is safe, abundant and (as compared with its rivals) relatively benign for the environmental health of our planet.'
Security

Submission + - Using GitHub to host a business sensitive web application? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I'm working at a small company developing and maintaining a casino web site, which therefore handles a bit of money via payment providers and through the games themselves. Needless to say, if someone were to get their hands on the code base it may be a very bad situation if they can identify some security hole and gain access to accounts with real money, or just glance something else that's business critical.

Currently we use Subversion as our source control, but we are investigating a move to Git. A suggestion was recently brought up to use GitHub private repositories for hosting the code, instead of setting up our own server. We do use, love and try to contribute back to open source whenever we can, and for one thing it'd be nice to sponsor the fine people at GitHub by giving them some business. Other pros include not having to host and secure this ourselves, access from anywhere and a very good set of tools. We're also looking into share tools we have written in a public repository so it'd be nice to have it in the same place.

The question is if it's considered a secure alternative and if there are other potential problems? We can of course set up and maintain our own server, but it'd be nice to not have to, when there are others than can do it for us. :)

Are there people out there who has experience with using GitHub for something like this, and also are there anyone who has some insight into the security and policies that GitHub employs in practice, is it considered being on a good level? And of course, anything else you could think of that would affect such a decision, security-wise or otherwise.

I realize that if we think we are qualified to handle people's money (and we do!) we should be able to judge this for ourselves, but it'd be interesting to hear about other people's experiences and insights. We also know about GitHub Enterprise, but that's on another price level at about 20 times the cost, as well as moving the work back to us.

Thanks!
Apple

Submission + - Apple loses bid to exclude evidence in Samsung patent trial (bloomberg.com) 1

Submitted by __aaltlg1547
__aaltlg1547 writes: Apple loses bid to exclude evidence in Samsung patent trial Apple Inc. lost its bid to exclude evidence presented by Samsung Electronics Co. at the companies' patent trial in California about a tablet computer developed more than a decade before Apple's iPad was released in 2010. Judge Koh strikes for sanity again.
Games

Submission + - Electronic Arts Up For Sale (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by John Wagger
John Wagger writes: One of the world's largest gaming publishers and developers Electronic Arts has quietly put itself up for sale. While there have already been talks with private equity companies, the talks have not resulted in anything concrete. One of the sources is saying that EA would do the deal for $20 per share (currently at $14.02). Over the past year EA's stock price has fallen 37 percent. Like other major game publishers EA has been struggling against growing trend of social and mobile gaming.

Submission + - Motorola releases an "official" bootloader unlocker (custhelp.com)

Submitted by Nertskull
Nertskull writes: So Motorola claims to have released a tool to allow anyone to unlock the bootloader on their phone. Unfortunately, the only supported device right now is the Photon Q 4G LTE. However, other devices are supposedly on their way.
Google

Submission + - Amazon to Eat Google's Lunch (sfgate.com)

Submitted by wreakyhavoc
wreakyhavoc writes: Nicholas Carlson at Business Insider maintains that Amazon's reviews and One-Click ordering will undercut Google's shopping ad revenue, and that Google is "terrified". How could Google fight this possible threat? Expose the astroturfing of Amazon reviews. Of course this would likely backfire as it would expose the astroturfing, link farming, and SEO games on Google.

From the article:

Google's real rival, and real competition to watch over the next few years is Amazon.

Google is a search company, but the searches that it actually makes money from are the searches people do before they are about to buy something online. These commercial searches make up about 20 percent of total Google searches. Those searches are where the ads are.

What Googlers worry about in private is a growing trend among consumers to skip Google altogether, and to just go ahead and search for the product they would like to buy on Amazon.com, or, on mobile in an Amazon app.

There's data to prove this trend is real. According to ComScore, Amazon search queries are up 73 percent in the last year.

Submission + - I need and want to read more, should I get an eBook or Tablet? 1

Submitted by gspec
gspec writes: I read less and less nowadays, but I realize I need to get back into my old reading habit. Should I get an eBook or Tablet? Would it help me to enjoy reading more?
A little relevant background about me: I probably can spare 2 hours a day to read. I do not travel a lot. I am not a fast reader, if I force myself, I could probably finish a standard length novel in a week. English is my second language, so built-in Dictionary is a nice thing. I enjoy Netflix. I have bought many computer/technical eBooks from O'Reilly for reference. I have many technical reference PDFs. I have 300-400 bucks to spare for this. I have a Dell laptop, iPad2 (wife hogs this), MBA, and a desktop.
So what do you think? Should I get one? If you think I should, eBook or Tablet?
I don't mean to be rude, but please no "Up to you" answers, because I already know that :). Also I know I don't need it, but I want it. I would like opinions based on your knowledge and experience on reading using eBooks/Tablets. Thank you in advance
Television

Submission + - Best Small Form Factor Display?

Submitted by Chaseshaw
Chaseshaw writes: My phone has such an awesome display. All I want is a small monitor, between 4 and 7 inches, the more pixels the better--are there any devices on the market that do such a thing? Or am I destined to buy a portable tv and that's the best I can do? Or is there an app for, or a smartphone that can handle an hdmi input?
Google

Submission + - Google Seeks U.S. Ban on iPhones, iPads, Macs 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Following up on an announcement that it would rid itself of 4,000 employees world-wide and renege on a deal with the State of Illinois, Google’s Motorola Mobility unit said it has filed a new patent-infringement case against Apple, which seeks a ban on U.S. imports of devices including the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. 'Apple’s unwillingness to work out a license leaves us little choice but to defend ourselves and our engineers' innovations,' Motorola Mobility said in an e-mailed statement. All of this doing-no-evil may have taken its toll on Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who traded in some GOOG stock for a little walking-around-money and reportedly jetted off to Fiji on their very own 767 for a little R&R with friends and family on a superyacht.
Medicine

Submission + - Genetically Engineering Babies a Moral Obligation says Ethicist

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Telegraph reports that Oxford Professor Julian Savulescu, an expert in practical ethics, says that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a "moral obligation" as it makes them grow up into "ethically better children" and that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence as it means they will then be less likely to harm themselves and others. "Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting?" writes Savulescu, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics. "So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice. To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality." Savulescu says that we already routinely screen embryos and fetuses for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Down’s syndrome and couples can test embryos for inherited bowel and breast cancer genes. "Whether we like it or not, the future of humanity is in our hands now. Rather than fearing genetics, we should embrace it. We can do better than chance.""

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