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Technology

Submission + - Listen Here lets tourists eavesdrop on the city (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Tourists want to experience the "sights and sounds" of everywhere they travel, but usually viewing the sights is much easier than hearing the sounds. It's one thing to look at the Statue of Liberty; it's quite another to be able to listen to the sounds around it. The UK designer behind the Listen Here concept would like to redress the balance by giving tourists a chance to hear audio from all over a town without having to actually go to each place. With microphones at different locations transmitting data to a central map, tourists would be able to simply point at a different and hear live ambient sound from all around a city.
Science

Submission + - 'Gaydar' Abilities in Humans Validated (psychcentral.com)

Submitted by
horselight
horselight writes: "Recent behavioral studies indicate humans do indeed possess 'gaydar' and can differentiate sexual orientation by facial features to a high degree of accuracy. These studies were conducted by flashing images for only a few seconds and asking the test subjects to determine the sexual orientation of the face they saw seconds before."
Businesses

Submission + - Springhill Group: DPRK jams GPS of ROK Airlines (springhillmedgroup.com)

Submitted by
springmed
springmed writes: "http://recentnews.springhillmedgroup.com/2012/05/springhill-group-dprk-jams-gps-of-rok-airlines/

GPS jamming signals coming from North Korea has forced South Korea to order its military and civilian air transports to switch on alternative navigational devices to avoid disruption.

A statement from the ministry has confirmed that they were able to warn airlines and pilots of the 241 affected South Korean flights along with the 11 foreign airlines like Thai Airways, AirPhil, FedEx, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways. But even as the GPS jamming signals continued, South Korea sees no serious threat to navigational safety.

Korea Communications Commission confirmed that the GPS jamming signals have been coming from a city on North Korea side of the border. “We’ve traced the jamming signals to the direction of Kaesong,” a commission deputy director told Springhill Group.

According to the transport agency, planes that suffered from GPS signal jamming were instructed to use the alternative navigation systems and were not delayed in their schedules. The signal jamming appears to be focused on air traffic at Gimpo and Incheon airports, both of which are around 30 miles from the border.

Despite the GPS disruption, Springhill Group reports that there was no serious threat to flight safety as airplanes are capable of using other navigation devices like inertial navigation system and very-high-frequency omni-directional range (VOR). Meanwhile, military communications and transportation were not greatly affected as they do not primarily depend on the GPS system.

North Korea did not admit anything so the reason for the GPS jamming remains unclear as fears that another nuclear test might follow is escalating.

Likewise, it is not known for just how long the jamming will continue as during last year’s South Korea-US military drill, the radio signal jamming from Pyongyang has lasted for ten days. At any rate, South Korea is always on the lookout for any provocation from its neighbor, especially as a nuclear specialist has said that North Korea appears to be finishing its preparations for a nuclear test and might just be waiting for a government green light.

Last year, the defense minister of South Korea has warned that jamming devices could potentially disrupt guided weapons, posing a threat to security. The devices are effective for approximately 150 miles when put on structures like a TV transmission antenna and it is widely believed that Pyongyang got the devices from Russian firms as they were already encountered previously during the Operation Iraqi Freedom where GPS-guided weapons missed their targets.

North Korea has long been known for its provocative actions attempting to get the world’s attention. The most notable of the threats was issued through news agencies last month and have raised great concern:

“The special actions of our revolutionary armed forces will start soon to meet the reckless challenge of the group of traitors. They will reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style.”"
Open Source

Submission + - GitHub Reaches Out to Windows Developers (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Thinkcloud
Thinkcloud writes: GitHub is reaching out to Windows developers with the announcement of GitHub for Windows, a graphical client that will allow both developers and designers to seamlessly use the Git revision control system.
Microsoft

Submission + - ITC judge calls for US XBox ban in Motorola patent battle (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by symbolset
symbolset writes: In the long running complaint between Motorola and Microsoft, Judge David Shaw of the ITC recommended Monday a ban on XBox consoles, as they are found to infringe Motorola's patents. The judge also ordered Microsoft post a bond of 7 percent of the retail price of all unsold US XBox inventory. The decision will go to the ITC’s board of commissioners who will either uphold the recommendation or overturn it.
The Internet

Submission + - FCC boss wants to meter the internet (msn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski has publicly backed usage-based pricing for wired Internet access at the cable industry's annual NCTA Show. He makes the claim that it would drive network efficiency. Currently most Internet service providers charge a flat fee and price their packages based on the speed of the service, while Cellphone providers are reaping record profits by charging based on usage, similar to the way utilities charge for electricity. By switching to this model the Cable companies can increase their profitibility while at the same time blocking consumers from cutting the cord and getting their TV services online. A petition has been created calling for his resignation
Microsoft

Submission + - Nortel patents are being used to arm a patent troll

Submitted by wannabgeek
wannabgeek writes: Microsoft, Apple, RIM and a few other companies formed a consortium to bid for patents of the dying telecom company Nortel and won. Now, these patents are being used to feed a patent troll called Rockstar and it has employees dedicated to investigate and find infringements and pursue litigation. Is anyone surprised?
Businesses

Submission + - SEC calls for review of Facebook IPO (theage.com.au)

Submitted by beaverdownunder
beaverdownunder writes: After losing another 8.9% of it's IPO value in its third day of trading, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro has called for a review of the circumstances surrounding Facebook's IPO on the NASDAQ late last week.

Unable to sell Facebook short, investors have instead taken to short-selling funds that owned pre-IPO shares as revelations come out that the underwriters involved revised their Facebook profit forecasts downward in the days before the offering without similarly revising the opening share price.

Meanwhile, Thomson Reuters Starmine has come out with a post-party Facebook estimate of a meagre 10.8 per cent annual growth rate, valuing the stock at a paltry $US9.59 a share, a 72 per cent discount on its IPO price, signalling that the battered stock may not have found the bottom yet.

Submission + - The older we get, the less we know (cosmologically) (esciencenews.com)

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: The universe is a marvelously complex place, filled with galaxies and larger-scale structures that have evolved over its 13.7-billion-year history. Those began as small perturbations of matter that grew over time, like ripples in a pond, as the universe expanded. By observing the large-scale cosmic wrinkles now, we can learn about the initial conditions of the universe. But is now really the best time to look, or would we get better information billions of years into the future — or the past? New calculations by Harvard theorist Avi Loeb show that the ideal time to study the cosmos was more than 13 billion years ago, just about 500 million years after the Big Bang. The farther into the future you go from that time, the more information you lose about the early universe.
Privacy

Submission + - New York Proposing Legislation To Ban Anonymous Speech Websites (arstechnica.com) 2

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "Republican Assemblyman Jim Conte "[this] turns the spotlight on cyberbullies by forcing them to reveal their identity." and Republican Sen. Thomas O’Mara "[this will] help lend some accountability to the Internet age." are sponsoring a bill that would ban any New York-based websites from allowing comments (or well, anything) to be posted unless the person posting it attaches their name to it. But it goes further to say New York-based websites, such as blogs and newspapers, to “remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post.”"
Crime

Submission + - SAP's VP Arrested In False Barcode Scheme (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "With barcode scanning being so commonplace, nothing seemed out of the ordinary when Thomas Langenbach, the vice president of SAP, was found scanning boxes upon boxes of Lego toys before purchasing them. Little did anyone know, the 47-year-old Silicon Valley executive was actually engaged in a giant scam. Langenbach would visit several Target stores and cover the store's barcodes with his own, so when he would bring the boxes up to the register, Langenbach would pay a heavily-discounted price. For example, this tag swapping allowed him to buy a Millennium Falcon box of Legos worth $279 for just $49. Once he bought the discounted Lego boxes, the SAP executive would take to eBay (under the name "tomsbrickyard") and sell the items. Langenbach reportedly sold more than 2,000 items on eBay, raking in about $30,000. He was finally caught by Target security on May 8, and he was arraigned on Tuesday on four counts of burglary."
The Internet

Submission + - How Alcatel-Lucent can make the Internet 5 times faster (cnn.com)

Submitted by dancinfrandsen
dancinfrandsen writes: Alcatel-Lucent announced Tuesday that it has developed the "7950 XRS," a core Internet router that is capable of speeds up to five times faster than those of its nearest competitor. Just one 7950 XRS router can deliver 16 terabits of data per second. That's about 2.5 million HD video streams every tick of the second hand.
Data Storage

Submission + - Stanford bioengineers create rewritable digital data storage in DNA (moneyscience.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: You don't hear too much about biological computing but in research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences scientists reveal they have devised the genetic equivalent of a binary digit — a "bit" in data parlance.

"It took us three years and 750 tries to make it work, but we finally did it," according to Jerome Bonnet, of research which describes, a method for repeatedly encoding, storing and erasing digital data within the DNA of living cells.
Security

Submission + - Researchers 'Map' Android Malware Genome (darkreading.com)

Submitted by yahoi
yahoi writes: Researchers at NC State are sharing their analysis and classification of Android malware samples under a new project that they hope will help shape a new way of fighting malware, learning from the lessons of the PC generation and its traditional anti-malware products.
Mozilla

Submission + - Mozilla Announces Web Development Learning Initiative (mozilla.org)

Submitted by bonch
bonch writes: Mozilla has announced Webmaker, a web development initiative aimed at teaching the average user the building blocks of the web. Users can join a "code party" and learn web development with provided authoring tools, and existing developers can volunteer to run their own events. To kick it off, Mozilla is announcing the Summer Code Party starting June 23.
IT

Submission + - Options for Good (Not Expensive) Office Backbone For a Small Startup 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I recently joined a startup, we have about 10 people altogether in various roles / responsibilities, and I handle most of the system / IT responsibilities (when I'm not in my primary role, which is software development). When trying to price licenses, I'm finding Microsoft offerings require quite a bit of upfront cost, so I'm trying the alternative solutions. LibreOffice and Google Docs work fine for the most part (we also have some MS Office users); however I'm having trouble getting a good / cheap / free solution to email, contacts, calendaring and user management in general. We have some Mac users, Windows users, need desktop clients for most of these uses as well — and there doesn't seem to be a solution that satisfies these myriad combinations. iCloud doesn't natively support non @me.com addresses (workarounds seem prone to breakage so far), Windows Live Mail doesn't support Google's CalDAV, there doesn't seem to be anything that can provide a company-wide Contacts support, etc. Ideally I can deploy a solution that has the following: Sharing calendar (or look at other people's calendar), Company-wide Contacts Address Book, Add new employee / consultants and take them offline too (in terms of user permissions, access), Clients available on Windows, OSX, possibly mobile, which support the calendaring / meeting invites / contacts list set up. Maybe I'm just out of my depths here — can Slashdot provide some direction as to what I can look at? Or is a Hosted Exchange the cheapest option? Disclaimer: I did come from a company that uses Exchange / Outlook — but the costs seem high.
DRM

Submission + - Fresh voice against DRM (forbes.com)

Submitted by Vo1t
Vo1t writes: The makers of The Witcher series explain why they've chosen not to use DRM's with their own releases. Interesting fact that the DRM'd version (by Atari) was cracked before the non-DRM one (by CD Projekt on GOG).
Power

Submission + - Severe Nuclear Reactor Accidents Likely Every 10 to 20 Years (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by surveyork
surveyork writes: "Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed. Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) — some 200 times more often than estimated in the past."

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