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Submission + - 63,000-Year-Old Skull Supports the "Out-of-Africa" Theory, Archaeologists Say

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Pieces of human skull found in the "Cave of the Monkeys" are being reported as the earliest skeletal evidence of ancient migration to Asia, according to archaeologists. There has been prior archaeological evidence that suggested modern humans once migrated out of Africa into Southeast Asia, but with the lack of fossils to support this theory, it has always been up for debate, until now.
Games

Submission + - CPUs do affect gaming performance, after all (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "For years, PC hardware sites have maintained that CPUs have little impact on gaming performance; all you need is a decent graphics card. That position is largely supported by FPS averages, but the FPS metric doesn't tell the whole story. Examining individual frame latencies better exposes the brief moments of stuttering that can disrupt otherwise smooth gameplay. Those methods have now been used to quantify the gaming performance of 18 CPUs spanning three generations. The results illustrate a clear advantage for Intel, whose CPUs enjoy lower frame latencies than comparable offerings from AMD. While the newer Intel processors perform better than their predecessors, the opposite tends to be true for the latest AMD chips. Turns out AMD's Phenom II X4 980, which is over a year old, offers lower frame latencies than the most recent FX processors."

Submission + - New judge assigned to case upholds $675k verdict in Tenenbaum case (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In SONY v Tenenbaum, the new District Judge assigned to the case has disagreed with the previous judge, and instead of reducing the $22,500 per file award to $2250 per file, has instead upheld the jury's verdict. The jury initially found defendant Joel Tenenbaum to have "willfully" infringed the RIAA copyrights by downloading 30 mp3 files which would normally retail for 99 cents each, and awarded the plaintiff record companies $675,000 in "statutory damages". Tenenbaum moved to set the verdict aside on both common law remittitur grounds and constitutional due process grounds. Judge Gertner — the District Judge at the time — felt that remittitur would be a futility, and on constitutional grounds reduced the verdict to $2250 per file. The RIAA appealed. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals remanded on the ground that Judge Gertner ought to have decided the question on remittitur grounds and reached the constitutional question prematurely. By the time the case arrived back in District Court, Judge Gertner had retired, and a new judge — Judge Rya Zobel — had been assigned. Judge Zobel denied the remittitur motion. And then Judge Zobel denied the constitutional motion, leaving the larger verdict in place. I think it is reasonable to expect Tenenbaum to appeal this time around."
NES (Games)

Submission + - The Rarest Nes Game Final Fantasy 2 On Sale for 50K

Submitted by Croakyvoice
Croakyvoice writes: In what seems to be the in thing at the moment comes another auction to add to last months Zelda Nes auction and that crazy Million Dollar Collection. This time for RPG fans this could be classed as the Holy Grail of Nes games. The game in question is Final Fantasy 2 which was never released outside of Japan but luckily for the person who at this time is selling this on Ebay for 50K, there was one made for the 1991 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by SquareSoft, sadly the USA version never had a release because they decided to work on the SuperNes instead.
Government

Submission + - Location Privacy Act approved by California Legislature (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
wermske
wermske writes: " Ars Technica and ZDNet report the Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB-1434) was passed by the California legislature on Wednesday. The California Location Privacy Act co-sponsored by the ACLU of California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation updates California privacy law to reflect the modern mobile world by providing needed protection against warrantless government access to a person’s location information. Recent reports indicate that cell phone tracking is routine and few agencies obtain warrants for such surveillance.

The need for this protection resurfaced last week when warrantless GPS tracking resurfaced in the national news — a federal appeals court ruled that law enforcement is allowed to track the GPS signal coming from a suspect's prepaid phone without a warrant. The scope of the Location Privacy Act would include gathering GPS or other location-tracking data from cell phones, tablets, computers, automobiles, etc. The next stop is the governor's desk; however, there is concern that Governor Jerry Brown may not sign this act into law. In 2011, Gov. Brown, vetoed an attempt at enforcing stricter privacy rules."

Submission + - UK seeks to repeal 'SOPA-like' site-blocking (zdnet.com) 1

Submitted by
ShadowCat8
ShadowCat8 writes: "The UK government has said it will abandon legislative plans to block copyright-infringing websites — proposals reminiscent of the draft Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Bill put before the US House of Representatives late last year.
Does that mean an end to site blocking? Of course not. The courts just don't need the extra helping hand to make it happen any more."
OS X

Submission + - OS X 10.8 vs. Ubuntu 12.04/12.10 Benchmarked (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: OS X 10.8 has been benchmarked against Ubuntu Linux with some interesting results. From the tests on a Apple Mac Mini and Apple MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion was clearly superior when it came to the graphics performance, but the rest of the time the operating systems performed quite closely with no clear winner. OS X also seems to have greater performance issues with solid-state drives than Linux.
Science

Submission + - One-molecule-thick material breaks new ground (mit.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: MIT News reports today that they can produce complex electronic circuits from molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a material that could have many more applications. Possessing exceptional strength and other novel properties, the form of MoS2 — "graphene" is a planar sheet structure merely one atom thick. Coming up with ways to use the substance has captured the imagination of researchers around the world. Jointly funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Microelectronics Advanced Research Corporation Focus Center for Materials, the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Laboratory, a deep focus on MoS2 and other two-dimensional (2D) materials, have revealed excellent electrical and optical properties. Sharing many of graphene’s advantages, specific properties of MoS2 allows it to overcome challenges of zero-bandgap graphene. Tomás Palacios, the Emmanuel E. Landsman Associate Professor of EECS, suggests this opens the door to an entirely new domain of production. Palacios believes this may be the most exciting advance in electronics in 20-30 years. A whole family of two-dimensional materials may be on the horizon and yield breakthroughs in optics, electronics, and stuctural materials.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft unveils first new company logo in 25 years (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: For the first time in 25 years, Microsoft has issued a new company logo to usher in the Windows 8 era. Made up of a newly square Windows symbol alongside grey Microsoft logo type, it's been designed to closely match the logos for other products in Microsoft's portfolio, including Office and Xbox. The logo takes pride of place on Microsoft.com from today, and will be used in Microsoft's retail stores and on all future TV ads.

Submission + - Should developers be sued for security holes? (techrepublic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Cambridge academic is arguing for regulations that allow software users to sue developers when sloppy coding leaves holes for malware infection. European officials have considered introducing such a law but no binding regulations have been passed. Not everyone agrees that it's a good idea — Microsoft has previously argued against such a move by analogy, claiming a burglary victim wouldn't expect to be able to sue the manufacturer of the door or a window in their home.
Earth

Submission + - Hurricane Could Make a Mess of Republican Convention 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "ABC News reports that Hurricane Isaac, currently a tropical storm brewing southeast of Puerto Rico, is on track to hit Florida the same day that Mitt Romney and 50,000 Republican delegates, journalists, protestors and guests descend on Tampa for the Republican National Convention but whether it will skim the east coast near Miami or crash head-on into Tampa, is still up in the air. The worst possible scenario is that Hurricane Isaac stays on the western track, skating over the Caribbean Sea south of Haiti, crossing the primarily flat landscape of western Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico then curving east and hitting Tampa dead-on. "Tampa is just as vulnerable as New Orleans was in the sense that the water will funnel into the bay area and from the storm surge which will flood completely the whole entire city of Tampa," says meteorologist Max Golembo. "It would be a disaster in the Tampa area." If a hurricane or tropical storm is bearing down on Tampa, the priority of law enforcement is to evacuate residents, leaving GOP officials to make the decision of when to evacuate delegates says Hillsborough County Emergency Management spokeswoman Holly Wade. "We have to look at a lot of factors, like timing and landfall," says Wade. "We provide the weather information, then we take that to the host committee, which decides if the event goes on or if the event gets altered." A Category 2 hurricane could disrupt convention activities because the Tampa Bay Times Forum, site of the festivities, is within a mandatory evacuation zone for storms of that magnitude. “Absolutely we’re prepared to call it off,” says Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. “I mean, human safety and human life trumps politics. I think the RNC recognizes that. The organizers, certainly Governor Romney recognizes that.”"
Apple

Submission + - Revisiting the Macintosh ROM Easter Egg (nycresistor.com) 1

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: NYCResistor has published photos of what they call "Ghosts in the ROM" after dumping Apple Mac SE ROM images from a roadside Motorolla 68000 era Macintosh and looking at all the data (they mention an Easter egg reference to this from 1999). They go into some nice detail about the strategy for extracting this data from a discarded unit and noticing structure. There's also other data that they weren't able to identify which causes one to wonder how many other Easter eggs are lying about in various ROM chips and what modern Easter eggs must be shipping with software/hardware today.

Submission + - 'Wiki Weapon Project' Holding Design Contest For 3D-Printable Guns (forbes.com) 2

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: Earlier this month, University of Texas law student Cody Wilson and a small group of friends who call themselves “Defense Distributed” launched an initiative they’ve dubbed the “ Wiki Weapon Project.” Their goal: to raise $20,000 to design and release blueprints for the world's first entirely 3D-printable gun. If all goes according to plan, RepRap users will soon be able to turn the project’s CAD designs into an operational firearm capable of shooting at least one standard .22 millimeter bullet, all in the privacy of their own garage.

Wilson and his handful of collaborators at Defense Distributed plan to use the money they raise to buy or rent a $10,000 Stratysys 3D printer and also to hold a 3D-printable gun design contest with a $1,000 or $2,000 prize for the winning entry–Wilson says they’ve already received gun design ideas from fans in Arkansas and North Carolina. Once the group has successfully built a reliable 3D-printed gun with the Stratysys printer, it plans to adapt the design for the cheaper and more widely distributed Reprap model.

The group had already raised more than $2,000 through the fundraising platform Indiegogo, but the site took down their page and froze their funds on Tuesday. They're continuing to seek donations through their website via Paypal and Bitcoin.
Biotech

Submission + - Fathers bequeath more mutations as they age (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "In the 1930s, the pioneering geneticist J. B. S. Haldane noticed a peculiar inheritance pattern in families with long histories of haemophilia. The faulty mutation responsible for the blood-clotting disorder tended to arise on the X chromosomes that fathers passed to their daughters, rather than on those that mothers passed down. Haldane subsequently proposed that children inherit more mutations from their fathers than their mothers, although he acknowledged that “it is difficult to see how this could be proved or disproved for many years to come”.
That year has finally arrived: whole-genome sequencing of dozens of Icelandic families has at last provided the evidence that eluded Haldane. Moreover, the study, published in Nature, finds that the age at which a father sires children determines how many mutations those offspring inherit. By starting families in their thirties, forties and beyond, men could be increasing the chances that their children will develop autism, schizophrenia and other diseases often linked to new mutations (abstract)."
Hardware

Submission + - TV with 16 times resolution of HDTV passed by UN standards body (techworld.com) 1

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: A new television format that has 16 times the resolution of current High Definition TV has been approved by an international standards body, Japanese sources said earlier today.

UHDTV, or Ultra High Definition Television, allows for programming and broadcasts at resolutions of up to 7680 by 4320, along with frame refresh rates of up to 120Hz, double that of most current HDTV broadcasts. The format also calls for a broader palette of colours that can be displayed on screen.

The video format was approved earlier this month by member nations of the International Telecommunication Union, a standards and regulatory body agency of the United Nations, according to an official at NHK, Japan's public broadcasting station, and another at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

Submission + - Recent warming of Antarctica "unusual but not unprecedented" (nature.com)

Submitted by tomhath
tomhath writes: Ice core study concludes that climate change and associated melting of ice in Antarctica is more the norm than the exception, including rapid warming cycles as we appear to be in today.

Study concludes: Although warming of the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula began around 600 years ago, the high rate of warming over the past century is unusual (but not unprecedented) in the context of natural climate variability over the past two millennia. The connection shown here between past temperature and ice-shelf stability suggests that warming for several centuries rendered ice shelves on the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula vulnerable to collapse.
Security

Submission + - ToorCamp: Adventures in an American hacker camp (computerworld.com)

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: While a tech camping event might sound like an oxymoron, hackers, makers, breakers and shakers assembled at the northwestern tip of the USA for ToorCamp and dispelled the notion that all hackers avoid sunshine and the great outdoors. As you would expect from a hacker conference, there were workshops like the one for lock picking and a plethora of presentations from “hacking computers to brain hacking, from brewing soda to fighting robots, from civil rights to lightning guns.” Then unique aspects of this cool hacker camp get more bizarre . . like the laser that was so bright it required FAA clearance to deploy it, the ShadyTel community 'payphone,' the Temple of Robotron, an RFID implantation station, bike jousting, dancing robots and of course campfires. Need an even stranger adventure that's also in the ToorCon family of hacking conferences? There's the upcoming WorldToor, the first ever hacker conference in Antarctica.
The Courts

Submission + - New eBay EULA Prohibits Class Action Lawsuits (ebay.com)

Submitted by dangthill
dangthill writes: On August 21, eBay updated its end-user agreement by adding a binding arbritration clause. By accepting the new agreement, users forfeit their right to join class action lawsuits and instead must submit to arbitration. However, users may opt-out by mailing eBay a signed notice. eBay joins Microsoft, Sony, Electronic Arts, Valve and other companies attempting to prevent class actions after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled such tactics valid.

Submission + - Booted from airplane for wearing anti-TSA T-shirt (rt.com)

Submitted by Cigarra
Cigarra writes: PhD student Arijit learned the hard way that in Brave New America you can't mock TSA's Security Theater and go on about your business. According to a recolection in RT.com:

After being vigorously screened and questioned multiple times, Arijit says he was finally given permission, once more, to board his plane. The pilot of the aircraft, however, had had enough of the whole ordeal and asked the Delta supervisor to relay the message that, due to the discomfort the shirt had caused, neither Arijit nor his wife would be allowed to board the aircraft.

Just how much humiliation is the general American public willing to tolerate in the name of 'security'?

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